I am starting a new localization effort for some minority languages in
Cambodia. The goal is not to translate the user interface, but to create
locales that will allow the use of local forms and spell-checkers.
Three of this languages: Brao (brb, also known as Lave), Tampuan (tpu)
and Bunong (bun) use the Khmer script, while the forth one - Cham - has
its own script. The languages are listed in 639-3, except for Cham (cmc)
that is listed in 639-2.
The first three languages above belong to the mon-khmer group, and are
spoken by minorities in Cambodia (and some in Lao, such as Brao), in a
region that is close to both Lao and Vietnam. The effort to write these
languages has started in the last 10 years, lists of words for
spell-checkers have been developed, and will help the standardization of
the writing of these languages.
Cham is originary of the Champa region of central Vietnam. The Cham
people were originally hindu, but most of them converted to Islam (there
are about 50.000 who are still hindu in central Vietnam), and dispersed
mostly through Vietnam and Cambodia. They have their own style of Islam,
with a lot of local customes. They have their own script, also of Brahmi
(Indic) origin. The are two quite different styles for the script in
Vietnam and Cambodia (Cambodia has about 500.000 Cham). Fonts have been
developed for Vietnam Cham, but not for Cambodian Cham. We are now
working on the first font for Cambodian Cham, so that books can be
printed (until now they are hand-written).
I would also like to continue the localization effort for Myanmar, which
has now finally defined its Unicode standard (final I hope). Microsoft
has not yet updated to its new form, but this is not relevant to the
localization work in OpenOffice, it will regard the MS Unicode engine
and ICU.
None of these languages have a MS ID number, nor risk having anytime in
the next decade.
I will write patches language by language.
New languages bring new things... some of these languages count time in
about two hour periods, which have names that refer to the position of
the sun at that time. The am/pm thing is included in the names.
Javier
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