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In computing
Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and developing computer technology, computer hardware and computer software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology....
, internationalization and localization (also spelled internationalisation and localisation, see spelling differences
American and British English spelling differences

American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.The spelling systems of Commonwealth of Nations countries, for the most part, closely resemble the British system....
) are means of adapting computer software
Computer software

Computer software, or just software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, Algorithm and Software documentation that perform some tasks on a computer system....
 to different languages and regional differences. Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale
Locale

In computing, locale is a set of parameters that defines the user's language, country and any special variant preferences that the user wants to see in their user interface....
-specific components and translating text.

Due to their length, the terms are frequently abbreviated to the numeronym
Numeronym

A numeronym is a number-based word.Most commonly a numeronym is a word where the number is used to form an abbreviation .Pronouncing the letters and numbers may sound similar to the full word: "K9" for "...
s i18n (where 18 stands for the number of letters between the i and the n in internationalization, a usage coined at DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering United States company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC ....
 in the 1970s or 80s) and L10n respectively.






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In computing
Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and developing computer technology, computer hardware and computer software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology....
, internationalization and localization (also spelled internationalisation and localisation, see spelling differences
American and British English spelling differences

American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.The spelling systems of Commonwealth of Nations countries, for the most part, closely resemble the British system....
) are means of adapting computer software
Computer software

Computer software, or just software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, Algorithm and Software documentation that perform some tasks on a computer system....
 to different languages and regional differences. Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale
Locale

In computing, locale is a set of parameters that defines the user's language, country and any special variant preferences that the user wants to see in their user interface....
-specific components and translating text.

Due to their length, the terms are frequently abbreviated to the numeronym
Numeronym

A numeronym is a number-based word.Most commonly a numeronym is a word where the number is used to form an abbreviation .Pronouncing the letters and numbers may sound similar to the full word: "K9" for "...
s i18n (where 18 stands for the number of letters between the i and the n in internationalization, a usage coined at DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering United States company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC ....
 in the 1970s or 80s) and L10n respectively. The capital L on L10n helps to distinguish it from the lowercase i in i18n.

Some companies, like Microsoft
Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
 and IBM
IBM

International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue" , is a multinational corporation computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, New York, United States....
, use the term globalization for the combination of internationalization and localization. Globalization can also be abbreviated to g11n.

This term is also known as Native Language Support or NLS.

Scope

Focal points of internationalization and localization efforts include:
  • Language
    • Computer-encoded text
      • Alphabets/scripts; most recent systems use the Unicode
        Unicode

        Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
         standard to solve many of the character encoding
        Character encoding

        A character encoding system consists of a code that pairs a sequence of character from a given character set with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octet or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks and/or Computer data storage of Character in compute...
         problems.
      • Different systems of numerals
        Number names

        In linguistics, a number name, or numeral, is a word in a natural language that signifi? a number.In history of writing, numerals are symbols representing numeral systems....
      • Writing direction which is e.g. left to right in German
        German language

        German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
        , right to left in Persian
        Persian language

        name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
        , Hebrew
        Hebrew language

        Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
         and Arabic
        Arabic language

        Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
      • Spelling
        Spelling

        Spelling is the writing of a word or words with the necessary Letter and diacritics present in an accepted standard order. It is one of the elements of orthography and a prescriptive element of language....
         variants for different countries where the same language
        Language

        A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
         is spoken, e.g. localization (en-US, en-CA, en-GB-oed) vs. localisation (en-GB, en-AU)
      • Text processing differences, such as the concept of capitalization
        Capitalization

        Capitalization is writing a word with its first grapheme as a majuscule and the remaining letters in Lower case , in those writing systems which have a letter case....
         which exists in some scripts and not in others, different text sorting
        Collation

        Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. One common type of collation is called alphabetisation, though collation is not limited to ordering letters of the alphabet....
         rules, etc
    • Input
      • Enablement of keyboard shortcuts on any keyboard layout
    • Graphical representations of text (printed materials, online images containing text)
    • Spoken (Audio)
    • Subtitling
      Subtitle (captioning)

      Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added information to help viewers who are deaf and hard-o...
       of film
      Film

      Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
       and video
      Video

      Video is the technology of electronics Videography, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing Scene in motion....
  • Culture
    Culture

    Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
    • Images and colors: issues of comprehensibility and cultural appropriateness
    • Names and titles
    • Government assigned numbers (such as the Social Security number
      Social Security number

      In the United States, a Social Security number is a nine-digit number issued to United States nationality law, Permanent residence , and temporary residents under section 205 of the Social Security Act, codified as ....
       in the US, National Insurance number in the UK, Isikukood in Estonia) and passports
    • Telephone numbers, addresses and international postal code
      Postal code

      A postal code is a series of letters and/or numerical digits appended to a address for the purpose of sorting mail.Germany was the first country to introduce a postal code system, in 1941....
      s
    • Currency
      Currency

      A currency is a Medium of exchange, facilitating the trade of goods and/or Service s. It is coins and paper bills used as money. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value....
       (symbols, positions of currency markers)
    • Weights and measures
    • Paper sizes
  • Writing Conventions
    Convention (norm)

    A convention is a set of agreement, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norm , norm or criterion, often taking the form of a Custom ....
    • Date/time format, including use of different calendars
    • Time zones (UTC
      Coordinated Universal Time

      Coordinated Universal Time is a time standard based on International Atomic Time with leap seconds added at irregular intervals to compensate for the Earth's slowing rotation....
       in internationalized environments)
    • Formatting of numbers (decimal points, positioning of separators, character used as separator)
  • Any other aspect of the product or service that is subject to regulatory compliance
    Compliance (regulation)

    Regulatory compliance refers to systems or departments at corporations and public agencies to ensure that personnel are aware of and take steps to comply with relevant laws and regulations....


The distinction between internationalization and localization is subtle but important. Internationalization is the adaptation of products for potential use virtually everywhere, while localization is the addition of special features for use in a specific locale. Internationalization is done once per product, while localization is done once for each combination of product and locale. The processes are complementary, and must be combined to lead to the objective of a system that works globally. Subjects unique to localization include:
  • Language translation
  • National varieties of languages (see language localization)
  • Special support for certain languages such as East Asian languages
  • Local customs
  • Local content
  • Symbols
  • Order of sorting
  • Aesthetics
    Aesthetics

    Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
  • Cultural value
    Culture

    Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
    s and social context


Practice

The current prevailing practice is for applications to place text in resource strings which are loaded during program execution as needed. These strings, stored in resource files, are relatively easy to translate. Programs are often built to reference resource libraries depending on the selected locale data. One software library that aids this is gettext
Gettext

gettext is the GNU internationalization library. It is commonly used for writing multilingual programs. The latest version is 0.17....
.

Thus to get an application to support multiple languages one would design the application to select the relevant language resource file at runtime. Resource files are translated to the required languages. This method tends to be application-specific and at best, vendor-specific. The code required to manage date entry verification and many other locale-sensitive data types also must support differing locale requirements. Modern development systems and operating systems include sophisticated libraries for international support of these types.

Difficulties


While translating existing text to other languages may seem easy, it is more difficult to maintain the parallel versions of texts throughout the life of the product. For instance, if a message displayed to the user is modified, all of the translated versions must be changed. This in turn results in somewhat longer development cycle.

Many localization issues (e.g. writing direction, text sorting) require more profound changes in the software than text translation. For example, OpenOffice.Org
OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org , commonly known simply as OpenOffice, is an office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems....
 achieves this with compilation switches.

To some degree (e.g. for Quality assurance
Quality Assurance

Quality assurance, or QA for short, refers to planned and systematic production processes that provide confidence in a product's suitability for its intended purpose....
), the development team needs someone who understands foreign languages and cultures and has a technical background. In large societies with one dominant language/culture, it may be difficult to find such a person.

Cost vs benefit tradeoff


In a commercial setting, the benefit from localization is access to more markets. Some argue that the commercial case to localize products into multiple languages is very obvious, and that all is needed is a budgetary commitment from the producer to finance the considerable costs. It costs more to produce products for international markets, but in an increasingly global economy, supporting only one language/market is scarcely an option. Still, proprietary software localization is impacted by economically viability and usually lacks the ability for end users and volunteers to self-localize as is often the case in open-source environments.

Since open source software can generally be freely modified and redistributed, it is more prone to internationalization. The KDE
KDE

KDE is a free software project based around its flagship product, a desktop environment for Unix-like systems. The goal of the project is to provide basic desktop functions and applications for daily needs as well as tools and documentation for developers to write stand-alone applications for the system....
 project, for example, has been translated into over 100 languages.

See also


  • Bidirectional script support
  • CJK
    CJK

    CJK is a collective term for Chinese language, Japanese language, and Korean language, which constitute the main East Asian languages. The term is used in the field of software and communications internationalization....
  • Computer russification
    Computer russification

    In computing, Russification is the Internationalization and localization of computers and Software localization, i.e., making the user interface of a computer and software to communicate in the Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet....
    , localization into Russian language
  • Game localization
  • Globalization Management System
    Globalization Management System

    A globalization management system is a type of software for automating many parts of the translation process and maximizing translator efficiency....
  • Glocalization
  • Input method editor
    Input method editor

    An input method is an operating system component or program that allows users to enter characters and symbols not found on their input device. For instance, on the computer, this allows the user of Keyboard layout to input Chinese character, Japanese writing system, Hangul and Indic script characters....
  • International Components for Unicode
    International Components for Unicode

    International Components for Unicode is an open source project of mature C /C++ and Java libraries for Unicode support, software internationalization and software globalization....
  • Language code
    Language code

    A language code is a code that assigns letters or numbers as identifiers for languages. These codes are often used to organize library collections, to choose the correct localizations and translations in computing, and as a shorthand designation for forms....
  • Language localization
  • Pseudolocalization
    Pseudolocalization

    Pseudolocalization is a software testing method that is used to test Internationalization and localization aspects of software. Specifically, it brings to light potential difficulties with localization by replacing localizable text with text that imitates the most problematic characteristics of text from a wide variety of languages, and by...
    , a software testing
    Software testing

    Software Testing is an empirical investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test , with respect to the context in which it is intended to operate....
     method for testing a software product's readiness for localization.
  • Punycode
    Punycode

    Punycode is a computer programming encoding syntax by which a Unicode string of characters can be translated into the more-limited Character encoding permitted in network Hostname....
    , translating Unicode into the character sets for network host names
  • Region code
  • Separation of concerns
    Separation of concerns

    In computer science, separation of concerns is the process of breaking a computer program into distinct features that overlap in functionality as little as possible....
  • Translation
    Translation

    Translation is the hermeneutics of the Meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an Dynamic and formal equivalence text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message in another language....


External links

  • - Global Software Strategies