Some jokes are probably not worth the effort...

[jducoeur]

Today's project is localizing the check fraud UI that I'm working on -- that is, making it work in various languages. For testing purposes, this really needs to be "programmer art". This is a valuable concept I learned at Looking Glass: when a programmer is doing any sort of design, it is vitally important that it be as ugly and useless as possible, to head off the chance of someone saying, "good enough -- ship it" before the real designer gets to make it right. Similarly, I don't want to come up with a quick-and-dirty French translation that someone might be tempted to show to a customer: everyone needs to be clear that the localizations must come from a real translator.

So obviously, the correct localization for me to use in testing is Klingon.

Unfortunately, having done about 20 minutes of research into Klingon, it's quickly apparent that doing anything more accurate than stringing together a lot of random plosives and glottal stops (or simply grabbing random words from the mailing list archives of the Klingon Language Institute) is going to be *way* too much effort, and the geek in me kind of wants to do a real (if pointless) translation. So I might just go for Esperanto instead, on the theory that I can probably fake it semi-accurately without as much effort...

ETA: Although I notice, to my amusement, that the number-one Klingon speaker in the world is apparently Rich Yampell, who I know slightly from many years back. It's halfway tempting to write to him about it...

Comments

Esperanto localisation

[kunar.livejournal.com]

If you decide to use Esperanto and need help, just drop me a line. As Esperanto was not made up for a science fiction or fantasy universe, it will be much easier to find decent translations. I am a native speaker and have some internationalisation experience.

The language uses a Latin alphabet, however, not ASCII or 8859-1, and it is possible to create long words. These are good qualities for a test language.

Esperanto as a menu language is reality. Although the LiveJournal translation has stopped (lack of helpers), the translation of Ipernity has been successful (I wasn't involved, so no self-marketing here). There is also a WordPress version in Esperanto which, as far as I can see, works.

Re: Esperanto localisation

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

How does one become a "native speaker" of an artificial language???
-- Dagonell

native speakers

[kunar.livejournal.com]

I grew up bilingually. My father spoke Esperanto to me during the first 12 years of my life. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers) gives some basic information. Unfortunately, other resources worth reading about that are in Esperanto. You might consider Jouko Lindstedt's "Native Esperanto as a Test Case for Natural Language" (PDF (http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/julkaisut/SKY2006_1/1FK60.1.5.LINDSTEDT.pdf)).

I know that for many people, Esperanto is an "artificial" language. However, this distinction Esperanto and "natural" languages seems to me rather artificial (at least today).

Re: Esperanto localisation

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Here's one way (which ties to the original post):
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/11/dinkytown_dad_s.php

Re: Esperanto localisation

[jducoeur]

Neat -- I don't know if I'm going to go that way, but thanks for the offer...