Re: [PATCH] po/hi.po: Add Hindi Translation

[Antriksh Pany <antriksh.pany@gmail.com>]

Hi Ram

Nice to see some Hindi around here ;P

A few comments inline.

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Sitaram,
>
> Sitaram Chamarty writes:
>> looks OK to me.  Some of those words will never be encountered in
>> colloquial Hindi (I had to think for a bit on निर्देशिका and
>> प्रतीकात्मक लिंक!) , but that's the way it always is.  We end up just
>> using the English word within Hindi/Telugu/whatever :-)
>
> Thanks for the feedback. Yes, that's true- even among my friends, only
> a few expert Hindi speakers were able to follow hindi.po
> completely. However, I figured that only those people who are more
> comfortable in Hindi than English will actually use hindi.po, so we
> might as well do it right :)
>
> I also discovered another thing- even expert Hindi speakers don't seem
> to understand Hindi grammar very well :p After a few hours of
> studying, I was able to correct a few more mistakes that others
> weren't able to spot. Here's the diff.
>
> Junio: Please squash this into the first revision of the patch.
>
> diff --git a/po/hi.po b/po/hi.po
> index d31e60b..a5464b3 100644
> --- a/po/hi.po
> +++ b/po/hi.po
> @@ -12,11 +12,11 @@ msgstr ""
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "Could not make %s writable by group"
> -msgstr "%s को समूह द्वारा लिखने योग्य नहीं बना सके"
> +msgstr "%s को समूह द्वारा लिखने की इजाज़त नही दे सके"
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "insanely long template name %s"
> -msgstr "टेम्पलेट का नाम बहुत लंबा है: %s"
> +msgstr "टेम्पलेट %s का नाम बहुत लंबा है"
bahut -> atyant?

>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "cannot stat '%s'"
> @@ -28,40 +28,40 @@ msgstr "टेम्पलेट '%s' को [stat] नहीं कर सक
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "cannot opendir '%s'"
> -msgstr "निर्देशिका नहीं खोल सके: '%s'"
> +msgstr "निर्देशिका '%s' नहीं खोल सके"
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "cannot readlink '%s'"
> -msgstr "लिंक नहीं पढ़ सके: '%s'"
> +msgstr "लिंक '%s' नहीं पढ़ सके"
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "insanely long symlink %s"
> -msgstr "प्रतीकात्मक लिंक बहुत लंबा है: %s"
> +msgstr "प्रतीकात्मक लिंक %s बहुत लंबा है"
Same suggestion: bahut -> atyant?
Also, dropping the 'है' might be crisper and closer to the English version.

>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "cannot symlink '%s' '%s'"
> -msgstr "'%s' से '%s' प्रतीकात्मक लिंक नहीं बना सके"
> +msgstr "'%s' का प्रतीकात्मक लिंक '%s' में नहीं बना सके"
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "cannot copy '%s' to '%s'"
> -msgstr "'%s' का नकल '%s' नहीं बना सके"
> +msgstr "'%s' का अनुकृति '%s' में नहीं कर सके"
ka -> ki

>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "ignoring template %s"
> -msgstr "टेम्पलेट को उपेक्षा कर रहे है: %s"
> +msgstr "टेम्पलेट %s का उपेक्षा कर रहे है"
ka -> ki

>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "insanely long template path %s"
> -msgstr "टेम्पलेट का आकार बहुत लंबा है: %s"
> +msgstr "टेम्पलेट %s का आकार बहुत लंबा है"
Again: bahut -> atyant. And again, 'है' could be dropped perhaps.

>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "templates not found %s"
> -msgstr "टेम्पलेट नहीं मिला: %s"
> +msgstr "टेम्पलेट %s नहीं मिला"
>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "not copying templates of a wrong format version %d from '%s'"
> -msgstr "'%s' से गलत स्वरूप संस्करण %d का टेम्पलेट नकल नहीं कर रहे है"
> +msgstr "'%s' से गलत स्वरूप संस्करण %d के टेम्पलेट्स के नकल नहीं कर रहे है"
Had changed नकल to अनुकृति earlier. Not doing that here?

>
>  #, c-format
>  msgid "insane git directory %s"
> -msgstr "खराब गिट निर्देशिका %s"
> +msgstr "%s खराब गिट निर्देशिका है"
I think the first one was better.


Having gone through this, I find it hard to think that anyone is
really going to use the Hindi translation. Any Indian who would be
involved with git would almost certainly be involved with it in the
English language, particularly given that some of the Hindi words are
fairly hard to follow. Also, when it comes to the Sciences (and in
particular, Computers) Indians (at least the Hindi speaking
population) have directly adopted the English versions instead of
seeking appropriate Hindi ones.

If we are going to have a hindi.po, I think it may be altogether
better to drop the unusual Hindi words, and literally use the English
word written in Hindi.. the way you did for words like 'templates',
'link' etc. Other candidates could be 'directory', 'format',
'version', 'copy', 'symbolic (link)', 'group', 'read', 'write'. I know
that translation for the last few words are not complicated. However,
the subtle meanings of these words in the context of computers gets
lost when translated in Hindi. (For example, 'read' and 'write', while
being similar to real-life usage, have in fact taken very specific
meanings in the context of computer science.)

Cheers
Antriksh