plurios-languages is a project to translate the PluriOS Linux distribution into native languages of Bolivia. PluriOS is based on Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix 20.04 LTS “Focal Fossa”, but we hope that plurios-languages can be packaged for other distros which offer the Cinnamon interface.
To fully localize Linux in another language requires translating over million words. LibreOffice alone contains roughly 300,000 words. OpenIT offered us a small fund to translate PluriOS's Cinnamon interface and main menu into Aymara, Quechua and Guarani, but that only consists of roughly 11,000 words for each language.
If we switch the system language to Aymara, Quechua or Guarani, we will have a problem, because the rest of the software in the system won't have a translation, so it will default to English, which is a language that very few speakers of Bolivian native languages know.
Another problem is that these languages often don't have locale files. For example,
there is a locale for ay_PE (aymara from Perú), but not for ay (aymara in general)
or ay_BO (aymara from Bolivia). GNOME gets its locales from clib, so we would
have to file issue reports with clib to get new locales created.
Another challange is that we need the ability to switch the interface from the native language to Spanish and back again. Many speakers of native languages have limited ability to read in their language, whereas they are trained to read and write in Spanish (or another dominant language such as English, Portuguese or French). Often the people who have more ability in the native language have to rely on non-speakers for help when using the computer, so it is important that be possible to easily switch the language.
In addition, translating the Linux interface into a native language often involves creating neologisms or new terms to cover the new terminology for the technology. In Aymara, we had to create dozens of neologisms for terms such as "file" (wayaqa), "folder" (q'ipi), "document" (qillqa-wayaqa), table (uyu-uyu), "energy" (ch'ama), "touchpad" (wikuchiri pampa), "package" (q'ipicha), "font" (qillqa kasta), "privacy" (sapa jaqinkirina), "network" (llika), "internet" (llikapura), etc. Plus, we borrowed dozens of technical words from Spanish, which we rephoneticized in the Aymara alphabet, such as "aplicación" (aplikasiyuna), "ventana" (wintana), "computadora" (kumputarura), "escritorio" (iskrituryu), "teclado" (tiklaru), etc. Sometimes it was possible to include the Spanish translation in parentheses to let users know what a neologism or borrowed term means. However, it is often necessary to switch the interface between Aymara and Spanish to discover the meaning of unfamiliar terms.
Since we didn't want to use most of our software in English nor wait for new locales to be
created, we decided to use the existing locale, which in our case is es_BO
(Spanish from Bolivia) and create language files in native languages for that locale.
In other words, the system still operates in the es_BO locale, but the
Spanish translation files for the Cinnamon interface and the main menu have been
replaced with native language translation files.
For the user, the Cinnamon interface appears Aymara (and in Quechua and Guaraní in the future when we start translating in those languages), but the rest of the programs appear in Spanish.
Unfortunately, the package managers in Linux distros do not allow packages
to over-write the files from other packages. For example, if we want to over-write
Cinnamon's Spanish translation files with Aymara, then we need to uninstall the
existing cinammon-l10n package and install our own custom package in its place
with the Spanish text replaced by Aymara text in files with the same filenames.
This works if dealing with replacig just one or two packages, but when we tried
to replace PluriOS's Spanish menu with an Aymara menu, we found that we needed to
replace over 150 files found in roughly 100 different packages.
We decided that the best solution was to include all the translation files in one
package and store them in a place in the file system where they wouldn't interfere
with other packages (namely /usr/share/plurios-languages/{lang}/) and then create
a python script, which we named "plurios", that could be executed with root permissions
to overwrite the existing language files to switch the language of the interface.
We added this option to the main menu, so users could easily execute the script. Unfortunately, Cinnamon needs to be refreshed after switching the language files (or the user has to manually logout and login again) in order to display the new language in some parts of the main menu, it isn't a seamless transition between languages.
We hope to also add the Quechua and Guarani translations in the same way to plurios-languages when we finish the translations.
If using a Debian-based distro with the Cinnamon interface, download the
plurios-languages_0.1-0_all.deb package and install it:
sudo dpkg -i plurios-languages_0.1-0_all.deb
Then, run the plurios script to install the language files for Aymara ("ay"),
official Aymara without elision ("ay-oficial") or Spanish ("es"):
sudo plurios -l ay
sudo plurios -l ay-oficial
sudo plurios -l es
Some of the changes to the language will immediately be visible in the interface
(such as the .desktop files), but other changes (such as the .mo files) will
only be displayed by logging out of Cinnamon and then logging in again. Another option
is to refresh the Cinnamon interface by simultaneously pressing the ALT + F2 keys.
In the dialog box that appears, enter r and press ENTER. A few seconds later,
Cinnamon will reappear with the updated language.
To see a list of all the files and directories that are changed, use the -v option
for more verbose output.
sudo plurios -v -l ay
To see information about the system, use the -i option:
plurios -i
To also see information about the system's hardware, include the -v option:
sudo plurios -v -i
For help using the plurios script, use the -h option:
plurios -h
To build the plurios-languages package, download the plurios-languages
directory. Then, issue the following command:
dpkg-deb --build --root-owner-group plurios-languages plurios-languages_0.2-0_all.deb
Where 0.2 is the program's version number, -0 is the revision number of the package
and all is the architecture (amd64, i386, arm64 or all for all architectures).
If needing to add additional language files to the package, then they needed to
be added in the location:
plurios-languages_{version}-0_all/usr/share/plurios-languages/{lang}/{location-in-file-system}
For example, if you want to add the file /usr/share/applications/myapp.desktop
for Aymara, then it will be placed at:
plurios-languages_0.1-0_all/usr/share/plurios-languages/ay/usr/share/applications/myapp.desktop
If needing to change the text of a .mo translation file, first install the poedit package.
Then, download the source code for the package that contains the translation file.
For example, if you want to add the Aymara translation for the TuxPaint package,
download the source code:
apt source tuxpaint
Then, open the Spanish translation file with PoEdit and change the Spanish to Aymara:
poedit tuxpaint-0.9.23/po/es.po
When done editing the PO file, save it in PoEdit to automatically generate the .mo file.
Then copy the .mo to the location in the package's file structure, so it will
be installed in the correct location in the system when the plurios -l script is executed.
For example:
sudo cp tuxpaint-0.9.23/po/es.mo plurios-languages_0.1-0_all/usr/share/plurios-languages/ay/usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/tuxpaint.mo
If unsure where to place the .mo file, install the program's normal package on the
system and then search for its .mo file. For example:
sudo apt install tuxpaint
sudo find / -iname tuxpaint.mo
If unable to find where a phrase is translated, use the grep command to find it.
For example, you see the phrase "My cool app" in the interface, then you search
for its file with this command:
sudo grep -r -i "My cool app" /usr/share/
The plurios script has a GPL 3.0 or later license. The language files have the
license of their software projects. If unsure which project a language file comes from,
that information can usually be found by opening the .desktop files with a plain text editor
(such as Geany) or by examining the .mo files with a binary
file editor (such as GHex).