Re: Translation of program names

[Ross Golder <ross golder org>]

On พฤ., 2003-10-30 at 12:00, Danilo Segan wrote:
> So, I'm wondering what's the opinion of both translators and hackers  
> about having their program names translated (or at least leaving that  
> option to translators)?

I see your point, but especially where names are amusing plays on
English words, translating them would cause more confusion than
anything, as the user may not understand English enough to understand
the pun.

Also a name is a unique identifier. For example, I'm English and my name
is Ross. When I tell Thai people my name, they think I'm saying 'Rose',
and usually mention 'dok mai' (the Thai translation for Rose). However,
once this is over and done with, they don't refer to me as 'dok mai',
they call me Ross, because that is my name. Sometimes they might call me
Loss, or Rot, but this is simply because of pronunciation difficulties
(I think because they have their own alphabet). I imagine they picture
my name in their minds for their own memory's sake as 'รอส'.. or
something similar.

I can see the merit of giving a local language translation of the name,
for interests sake, but I'd say the place for that would be in the About
dialog, for those that are interested (including a version of the word
using the native alphabet, where applicable), but I'm not sure the About
dialog is geared up for that. In normal use, I would say the original
name should be used, in the original alphabet too, where possible.

Just my opinion :) I appreciate that their may be encoding difficulties
implied in keeping with a name in it's original character se

Regards,

--
Ross