Telugu Localization Meetup 2017.
Telugu l10n meetup - తెలుగు స్తానికీకరణ సమావేశం
How does it feel by just reading the Title? That feeling of being connected to my native roots and I was lost in an acute swirl of all the feelings of oneness, proud and rejoice.
The event was happening at Swecha, Gachibowli in the City of Pearls I would rather prefer calling it City of Chicken Biryani as I proudly termed myself a chickiterian (though I have started eating other meat products very recently, still I love chicken to all other products). As you near the venue you will find a slight difference in the location. There is lots of greenery and calmness in the breeze. The entry gate was big, bright and erect welcoming me which has these nice cute hangings hung on the trees along the way. The hangings had a black and white theme with logos on the 3 sides and Telugu alphabets hanging like a bell.
As you start moving towards the hall you have the traces of hangings all over the place amidst the lush green trees. A while later you will note a massive building with lots of steps and pillars. All you can do is register it in the permanent memory and take a decision to visit again.
Right after climbing a floor the stairs are decorated with Telugu alphabets and a tress is hung with lots of alphabets with a note written “Alphabets Tree”. Anyone would become a photographer at the very sight of such good selfie scenes :P
A floor up through the calm library the hangings showed the way to the hall. On entering the hall all you find is lots and lots of Mozilla, Swecha, Wikipedia Logos, Telugu Alphabets hanging all over the place.
The room was filled with fresh air and a faint smell of breakfast. Hot breakfast was waiting to be eaten. Ghee Idly, Mysore Bajji, Wada along with Tea and Coffee (I wish I had milk :P). There were a few people who already came in on having a small chat I knew they were from different backgrounds, different organizations, and different age groups. Altogether the crowd was a very diversified one. Meanwhile, I had my breakfast talking about how I started localization and my experiences.
The meetup started a long while ago but we had an official inauguration after an hour. Here is how my day went.
Inauguration
Welcoming all the participants for the Telugu L10n Meetup with the emphasis on Localization and the collaboration of Mozilla, Swecha and Telugu Wikipedia.
Free Software and Localization session by Sunil Mohan This was a very incite-full talk which gave us incites of his experiences during FreedomBox installation and how villagers have started using Telugu as their default language in their Mobile phones. He gave us all an in-depth explanation about how Localization and Free Softwares are related. At the end, the talk was closed on a note where lots of Telugu Wikipedia articles are to be written to include in the offline wiki in the Freedom Box for people to access.
అనువాద సమస్యలు, సవాళ్లు by Veeven
Veeven's talk is just not a simple talk. He started off telling either I will entertain you or I will give information to you. But he did both. His talk gave us the sheer reality of a user’s perspective of viewing the end products of what we localized. All the Translators and Localizers most of the time miss out the essence of the sentence and make translation according to the sentence. He nicely explained how the translations should be made to meet the requirements of a user.
Firefox Focus Telugu Launch
All the attendees installed the Firefox Focus and explored the features in Telugu. The most insightful part is we found a partical link to what Veeven talked about regarding the user experience and users perspective. We decided to improve the translations made before considering all the scenario and the Style guide.
Introduction to Wikipedia by Kashyap
This was something which I thought I knew before but there was a lot more which I didn’t know. To be specific introduction covered how Wiki pages can be written in Telugu and all the tools available for editing. He added the Telugu typing tool available inbuilt in Wikipedia editors
I missed to add we had different kinds of sweets as refreshments to hog on in between the sessions. All of them tasted delicious yet Putharekulu got an extra point. Lunch
This is the best of the best segments. As told I had Chicken biryani but nevertheless all the other dishes like rice, dal, rasam, sambar, fry, fryms, curd, pickle, and deserts. Lots of Food, talk, and lots of smiles is how I see lunch ended.
After Lunch:
Wiki markup and Wiki-projects by Pavan Santhosh
This talk gave us a picture of the wide range of Wiki products available in Telugu and where we all can contribute according to the specifications of our projects. Though we knew we had so many flavors of Wiki until this talk we missed lot many flavors.
There were lots things being discussed. A mini review of individuals localization experiences was shared.
The day ended with a group photo with the theme based props (I can say that I think).
Day 2:
I was super excited thinking about what is in store for me for the day. As I reached the venue I realized I was already in love the place. The breakfast was quite like the previous day. And it started off
Recruitment of New Translator for Mozilla Telugu Locale:
“Sahithi from Swecha is recruited as a Translator bearing in mind all the good work she has done and the quality work. Hoping to hire few more Translators in the coming events.” Was told by Dinesh the Manager of Telugu Locale, Mozilla. With lots of happiness and head held high I took my T-shirt with a large Mozilla Firefox logo printed on it. Click .. clap.. click.. clap.. clap.. clap.. click. I sat in my chair smiling.
Introduction to Pontoon by Dinesh.
This talk started from the very beginning of creating the account in Pontoon to Reporting a Bug. He explained the entire functionality and features of the Tool.
Localization Sprint
We had a sprint where everyone translated things of their own interests. But on the whole for the Meetup more than 2500+ strings were translated in the Meetup and Run-up activities. Where most of them participated were New Contributors.
Today’s refreshments had deserts rich of Ghee.
Lunch
The food served was mouthwatering, the menu consisted different delicacies of Telugu States. The best items were Ragi Sankati, Natukodi Pulusu, Biryani, and non-the less the deserts kajalu, Mysore pak, Burfi.
After which
Style guide for Telugu Localization
A common Style guide for Telugu Localizationis initiated. We started documenting them in a Wikibook. The best thing about the style guide is “This could get all the communities on a single and uniform way of translating into Telugu” this would, in turn, help the society to access technology without language constraints.
A glossary containing a few technical words was made.
In two days about 50 articles were written in Telugu Wikipedia in the Free Software Project
Lots of group photos in the failing light ends the day.
This was the first L10n Meetup I attended. I will cherish all the learnings, memories and the stories for a very long time and Keep contributing more and more.