GNOME Translation Project - Tamil - Summary

This is GNU user group. It is not part of the GNU Project.

This project will help localise Gnome to Tamil in an organised way.
The end product will be a usable desktop in Tamil.
A cohesive production environment is our goal.
We will strive for the highest quality translations possible as it will be dictated by the number of volunteer participation in various tasks.

What is Gnome?
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Gnome is a user friendly desktop environment for X Window System.
Nothing scary just simple well thought out software that has been modelled with the future in mind.
Infact the acronym GNOME (("GNU Network Object Model Environment") should be self explanative.
It is a distributed desktop environment for X Window System and one of the two desktops of the GNU system.
You can learn more about GNOME at http://www.gnome.org.

The long awaited support for UTF-8 (Unicode TransFormation to 8-bit characters), and better coordination of project releases enable the new GNOME to support many languages of the world.
Unfortunately this has meant Tamil development had to go through a long delay until Unicode awareness usage is built up within the Tamil community.

Gnome translations are to be a cooperative community effort.
It is hoped that  reaching consensus on matters that should empower our community towards standard compliant technolgies like Unicode adoption and UTF-8 tools will be a main priority of the translators too.
We hope to use the system as soon as it is translated if not while translating it.

Also we hope to actively promote the translated system although anyone is free to use it, edit it or promote it. If you feel like you may need to start a sub project do not hesitate to ask.

We hope to continue with localization of other GNU software soon.

What is Tamil and how does it affect our translations?
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Tamil is the oldest and one of the two classical languages of India (being the pre-eminent member of the Dravidian Language family).
With such a rich literary tradition spanning over two thousand years tamil has seemingly undergone minimal changes, adaptations or revisions. Ancient text like Thirukkural is a widely quoted example for this aspect of Tamil. At the same time tamil is very much alive and is widely used by about 70 million people most living in the Tamil Nadu. Education in tamil as part of tamil culture is the norm is Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, the traditional heartlands.
Still there is a significant Tamil community in the Malay peninsula (in Singapore it is an official language), Mauritius and Reunion islands.
Further there are enthusiastic and lively Tamil communities spread globally with notable concentrations in Canada, western europe and south africa.

With all this in mind we will simply translate for the locale ta_IN.UTF-8
ie, We will be translate primaritly for the tamils in India to enjoy a UTF-8 system.
The language will be precise and usable by native speakers with an emphasis on helping them become informed users.

All advice, suggestions and help in these aspects of translations are also most welcome.

Registration Date: Thu 01 May 2003 10:03:10 AM UTC