Re: An Attempt in Emacs Translation

[Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net>]

Hi Jai,

>> These translations are alright, except for Kill. In Emacs jargon, kill
>> not only means to delete, but also to copy into the kill ring.
>
> “வெட்டு” seems closer to kill’s modern equivalent ‘cut’, but it doesn’t
> seem like an apt translation.

Yes, வெட்டு sounds good.

>> So, kill is really "kill+copy". But, somehow this added meaning has
>> come to be implicit in English usage. Getting the same nuanced
>> translation in Tamil will be very difficult.
>
> I don’t understand the need to imply the exact meaning in the
> translation. When we used Emacs for the first time ourselves, we did not
> know what ‘kill’ meant in Emacs jargon, which was explained later.
>
> So unless we get a better alternative for ‘kill’, the current
> translation should suffice.

Agreed, makes sense.

>> We really need a large body of Tamil Emacs users who are willing to
>> use these words everyday and create the subtle shades of meaning that
>> is so easy in English.
>
> Are there even significant Tamil Gnu/Linux users, let alone Emacs or
> Guix? I’m writing these translations hoping that it serves some future
> user, but currently how widely are our works acknowledged? Are we
> echoing to the void?

Ha ha! That's why translating software stuff to Tamil is so
frustrating. The lines யாருக்காக, இது யாருக்காக, இந்த மாளிகை வசந்த மாளிகை
always come to mind. :-P Most Tamil users of Emacs simply prefer to use
English. Even we are having this conversation in English. So, I really
don't know how to fix this. Being able to see the real-world impacts of
our translation would be very gratifying indeed. Maybe, Shrinivasan is
the right person to talk about this. I know almost nothing about what's
happening in the Tamil computing community.

Regards,
Arun