A FRAMEWORK FOR LOCALIZATION OF OPEN SOURCE APPLICATIONS FOR INDIGENOUS ETHIOPIAN LANGUAGES: A CASE STUDY ON AMHARIC
Domain:
natural language processingdigital infrastructureRecord type:
paper
Creator:
ABU
Editor:
Kul
Publisher:
Nat
Host:
Open Source Software (OSS) provides a numerous advantage for developing country like
Ethiopia. It gives privileges to use, copy, study, modify and distribute with free or
negligible license fee. For multilingual and multicultural country, localization has a vital
role to create and build local digital society. Localization of an OSS web application
provides an opportunity to deliver information or services to a target local customers in
their own language and cultures. This research focuses to study and develop appropriate
framework for localization of an OSS web-based application (WBA) user interface into
Amharic language. Low in cost, accessing source code and freedom to study/modify are
the main reasons to choose and study OSS WBA. In addition, local Amharic speaker
societies should not be mandatory to learn/know English language before accessing and
using a WBA. Because most commonly the OSS projects are design and developed for
English language speakers and their cultures. Language and cultural barriers have become
the critical challenges to use an OSS WBA for local business in Ethiopia. This is especially
true in rural areas, where native Amharic language speakers who cannot read or understand
the English language. Localization is the process of adapting a web application to a
particular local target language and culture. Localization framework is used to localize a
WBA into a target local language; and in order to make localization easy. Although in the
previous studies different localization frameworks are developed which are used for
European and Asian languages and cultures. But those frameworks are not directly
applicable for Amharic language, because a language and its local cultural issues are
different from those countries. The literature analysis method is used to identify and
analyze relevant localization issues, components and procedures of web application
localization. In addition, literature analysis also used to explore and analyze the contents
of a WBA user interface (UI) and the Amharic language content formats and cultural
issues. The purpose of this research is to investigate and design a framework for
localization of an OSS WBA into Amharic language with special focus on UI contents. It
can help Amharic speakers to access and retrieve the web application resources using their
own native language.
Ethiopia. It gives privileges to use, copy, study, modify and distribute with free or
negligible license fee. For multilingual and multicultural country, localization has a vital
role to create and build local digital society. Localization of an OSS web application
provides an opportunity to deliver information or services to a target local customers in
their own language and cultures. This research focuses to study and develop appropriate
framework for localization of an OSS web-based application (WBA) user interface into
Amharic language. Low in cost, accessing source code and freedom to study/modify are
the main reasons to choose and study OSS WBA. In addition, local Amharic speaker
societies should not be mandatory to learn/know English language before accessing and
using a WBA. Because most commonly the OSS projects are design and developed for
English language speakers and their cultures. Language and cultural barriers have become
the critical challenges to use an OSS WBA for local business in Ethiopia. This is especially
true in rural areas, where native Amharic language speakers who cannot read or understand
the English language. Localization is the process of adapting a web application to a
particular local target language and culture. Localization framework is used to localize a
WBA into a target local language; and in order to make localization easy. Although in the
previous studies different localization frameworks are developed which are used for
European and Asian languages and cultures. But those frameworks are not directly
applicable for Amharic language, because a language and its local cultural issues are
different from those countries. The literature analysis method is used to identify and
analyze relevant localization issues, components and procedures of web application
localization. In addition, literature analysis also used to explore and analyze the contents
of a WBA user interface (UI) and the Amharic language content formats and cultural
issues. The purpose of this research is to investigate and design a framework for
localization of an OSS WBA into Amharic language with special focus on UI contents. It
can help Amharic speakers to access and retrieve the web application resources using their
own native language.