[Axiom-developer] Re: French translation

[JC Helary]

Tim,
I just subscribed to axiom-dev.

> Jean-Christophe, Frederic, David,
>
> Jean-Christophe Helary has started looking at the problem of  
> translating
> Axiom to French.
>
> Frederic Lehobey and David Mentre have also started looking at the  
> problem.

Enchanté.

Let me introduce myself. I am a freelance translator, mostly working  
from Japanese and English to French. I am not a scientist, I am not a  
developer. I spend some free time on localizing some applications  
that I find interesting, and in the case of Axiom, I was proposed to  
contribute after a mail I sent to the CL-Gardeners list.

Right now I am working on the UI strings, after converting them to  
the Java properties format for parsing into the translation memory  
tool that I use: OmegaT.

OmegaT does not support Latex, so I am trying to think of a way to  
create a "pseudo" parser for such files.

If there are ways to round-trip Latex to some xml format then I could  
easily adapt the source to create a proper filter, based on the xhtml  
filter that already exists (I did that for DocBook or WordML/ExcelML  
files already).

So basically, my first challenge is to find a way to have OmegaT  
parse the source files. Then comes the translation, and since 1) I am  
not an axiom user 2) I do have 2 kids to feed with "real"  
deadlines :) I will appreciate support here...

Considering the scope of the translation, I'd say that getting the UI  
into French should not take more that a few days of work-I mean with  
final editing/proofreading. As far as the doc is concerned, it will  
take time so we'd better find a technically satisfying way of doing  
that right now :)

> In general I think we should consider changing the string control
> characters to use common lisp syntax and semantics. This won't be
> a simple job but is probably best for the long term. I can look at
> that problem.

Still, since the control character, even if replaced by cleaner  
syntax are not supposed to include translatable contents, I don't  
think it is an emergency as far as the translation itself is  
concerned, unless I have misunderstood what you meant.

My original comment came from the fact that having a place holder at  
the beginning of a sentence is fine, but then it should not be  
followed by an uppercase word... Now it really depends on what the  
placeholder contains, hence my request for practical examples.

> Latex is essentially a document markup language. Latex commands all
> begin with "\" and then a word, possibly with parameters. So making
> something bold would be:
>
>   \bf thing
>
> the other syntax is the use of the "$" to delimit mathematics so
> math "inline" in the sentence has 1 "$" delimiter like $x=y$ and
> math in its own box outside the line has 2 "$" delimiters like
> $$x=y$$. Beyond that the rest is generally text.

Ok, I'll see with your source.

> > Also, you mentioned the hyperdoc system. DO you have a file sample ?
>
> Many. I've attached an example.

It is Latex too ? TexInfo ?

> ====================================================================== 
> ===
>
> % Copyright The Numerical Algorithms Group Limited 1992-94. All  
> rights reserved.
> % !! DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE BY HAND !! Created by ht.awk.
> \newcommand{\OneDimensionalArrayXmpTitle}{OneDimensionalArray}
> \newcommand{\OneDimensionalArrayXmpNumber}{9.57}
> %
> %  
> =====================================================================
> \begin{page}{OneDimensionalArrayXmpPage}{9.57 OneDimensionalArray}
> %  
> =====================================================================
> \beginscroll

Jean-Christophe