We're also writing some grants now, some of which are aimed at our translation efforts.
Given this, I'm trying to determine a good translation priority list, which shows the order of languages we want to focus on most. Yes, we'll get translations first from people that volunteer, and that won't always correspond to the priority list. But our time (and future hopeful funds) are limited, so we'd like to concentrate on the languages that will reach the most new and existing Etoys users.
To get the conversation started, here are the most popular languages in the world:
1. Chinese *
2. Spanish
3. English
4. Hindi *
5. Arabic *
6. Bengali *
7. Portuguese
8. Russian
9. Japanese
10. Korean
11. German
12. French
Perhaps more telling is this list, which shows the number of wikipedia articles, which may be a better indicator of computer and web use:
1. English
2. French
3. German
4. Spanish
5. Portuguese
6. Italian
7. Japanese
8. Russian
9. Dutch
10. Polish
11. Chinese
12. Swedish
More direct to Etoys is our new list of "Squeakers", which has a graph at the bottom that shows number of users by country:
1. United States (english/spanish)
2. Germany (german)
3. Uruguay (spanish)
4. Brazil (portuguese)
5. Canada (english/french)
6. Argentina (spanish)
7. Austria (german)
8. Spain (spanish)
9. Colombia (spanish)
10. Bolivia (spanish)
11. Japan (japanese)
12. Netherlands (dutch)
Clearly, these languages merit special effort:
1. English
2. Spanish
3. German
4. Portuguese
5. French
And these represent known areas of Etoys use:
6. Japanese
7. Korean
8. Haitian Kreyol
9. Nepali
Three more to make a list of twelve:
10. Russian
11. Italian
Do you agree with this list of twelve? What would you add? Where would you put it in the list, and why?
We of course want to have all languages represented someday, particularly the starred items in the first list.
We're simply trying to set our immediate goals, given limited time and resources.
Take care,
Tim