Can Gothic be added to the languages?

Asked by roel

Hello,

I maybe will contribute to the Dutch translation, but my question is about something different.

I see that Latin is added to the languages, just as Esperanto and I 'm in a project to revive the Gothic language and would like to contribute to reviving it by also helping to create an Ubuntu Edition in Gothic.

There is one problem here: should I translate Gothic with the Gothic unicode or with Latin letters? Gothic is written in both ways by people but not everyone has Gothic unicode and for some people this gives blocks instead of letters.

Is it possible to change from Latin unicode letters to Gothic unicode in Linux? Or would two seperate language projects be needed to translate it both in Gothic with Gothic letters and Gothic with Latin letters?

Here is the ISO 639 of Gothic:

http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=got

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
Ubuntu Translations Coordinators Edit question
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Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#1

Hi roel,

I just got sight of this old question.

You should keep in mind that translating Ubuntu is not only about Ubuntu. It's about translating free software for Linux, i.e. a huge undertaking.

AFAICT Gothic is a language with no native speakers today, and I have to question how useful it would be. A basic requirement for adding a language to Ubuntu is the presence of a related glibc locale, and no such Gothic locale exists. So there is where you would need to start: Creating a Gothic locale and have it accepted by the glibc maintainers.

So yes, in theory it's possible. But would there be enough translators to translate tens of thousands of strings (at least) into Gothic and then maintain those translations when software is upgraded or replaced? And how many users would find it useful to have menus and windows displayed in Gothic?

My initial response would be: If you are interested in reviving Gothic somehow, doing it through translating Linux software is probably not the best way to reach out to the enthusiasts in question. If you think I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know in a comment here.

Regards,
Gunnar Hjalmarsson

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