Governments
around the world are facing a great challenge in today's global
economy-the need to quickly build a strong information technology
(IT) industry. Microsoft is committed to providing the tools and
technologies required to develop, enhance, and expand local IT
economies and to enable language groups of all sizes to participate
in this growth. The Local Language Program is designed to provide
these opportunities to people of all regions, cultures, and
languages in close collaboration with regional and local governments
and universities.
The Local Language Program
addresses several critical goals of national and regional
governments worldwide by:
| • |
Developing a robust local IT
economy. |
| • |
Building universal IT solutions
for multi-language cultures. |
| • |
Enabling the use of regional
languages in technology to facilitate the preservation of
language and culture. |
A Commitment to Global
Communities The Local Language Program encourages
growth of the local IT economy by offering the tools and knowledge
needed by local users to create their own language solutions for
desktop computer software. The program has two primary
components:
| • |
Community Glossary:
Facilitated by Microsoft technology, this part of the program
supplies Web tools and a simple process for creating a locally
developed and standardized technical
glossary. |
| • |
Microsoft Language Interface
Pack: Easy-to-use software tools enable the development
of Language Interface Packs for Microsoft® Windows® XP and
Microsoft Office 2003. This part of the program is a
collaborative effort with local governments, linguistic
authorities, and universities. |
Developing the Community Glossary: A
Cooperative Project The Community Glossary is
a collaborative project with local governments, universities, and
other groups in selected language communities worldwide. Using the
provided Web tools, volunteer translators and the sponsoring group
create and standardize the technical terminology glossary for their
own language. Standardizing the technical terminology is an
important first step to developing the IT industry.
Using a volunteer process
to build the glossary supports the following goals:
| • |
Builds community and allows this
community to create the official IT terminology database for
their local language. |
| • |
Helps local groups preserve and
promote their languages. |
| • |
Allows volunteers to develop their
resumes and portfolios. |
How the Community Glossary
Works Each new Community Glossary Web project is
led by a project moderator-a volunteer with strong linguistic skills
who is usually engaged by the local government.
Volunteer translators join
the project, suggest translations, and add comments to defend their
choice of terminology. At the scheduled time, the project moderator
reviews all suggestions for each term's translation, selects the
most appropriate translation, and locks each term until the glossary
is complete.
The local glossary project
team sets the schedule, use, and distribution of the completed
glossary.
Microsoft Language Interface
Pack Designed for regional markets that currently
do not have local versions, the Language Interface Pack provides
computer users with the ability to adapt their copy of Windows and
Office to display many commonly used features in their native
language.
Each new Language Interface
Pack is built using the glossary created by the Community Glossary
Project in cooperation with the local government, academia, and
local linguistic experts.
When complete, the new
Language Interface Pack is available as a free download from the
Microsoft Download Center and is easily installed on a licensed copy
of Windows XP and Office 2003 Standard Edition. The Language
Interface Pack may also be distributed on behalf of Microsoft by
participating third parties such as governments, local language
authorities, and universities. The Language Interface Pack provides
local governments with an efficient and collaborative method of
creating local language adaptations of these software products for
the benefit of their citizens.
For more
information about the Local Language Program, contact your local Microsoft
office. Also see the following articles:
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