fuel translation style and convention guide gujarati

8/3/2019 FUEL Translation Style and Convention Guide Gujarati

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COMPUTERCOMPUTER

TRANSLATIONTRANSLATION

STYLE &STYLE &

CONVENTIONCONVENTION

GUIDE FORGUIDE FOR

GUJARATIGUJARATI

S W E TA K O T H A R IS W E TA K O T H A R I


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Publisher:FUEL Project

IndiaTel:Web Site: https://fedorahosted.org/fuelMailing List: [email protected] License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlikeCopyright 2011 FUEL Project & Rajesh Ranjan

All Rights Reserved. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. Formore info please visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

Every effort has been made to ensure that this book is free from errors or omissions. However,the Publisher, the Author, the Editor or any related members, shall not accept responsibility forinjury, loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this book whether or not such injury, loss or damage is in any way due to anynegligent act or omission, breach of duty or default on the part of the Publisher, the Author, theEditor or any related members.

Acknowledgements: This book is prepared for FUEL project. This is ready for the approval andcomments from Gujarati Community working under several organisations.

Author:Editors:

Title: Computer Translation Style & Convention Guide for Gujarati

ISBN:

Editor:Cover Design: Jan 2011Page Design: Jan 2011
http://www.biblesforaustralia.org.au/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://www.biblesforaustralia.org.au/


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Contents

1. Why?..........................................................................................................................................................7

2. What is Gujarati?.......................................................................................................................................9

3. Who should translate?..............................................................................................................................11

4. General Translations Guidelines..............................................................................................................134.1 Characters .........................................................................................................................................134.2. Date..................................................................................................................................................144.3. Time.................................................................................................................................................144.4. Days..................................................................................................................................................154.5. Months..............................................................................................................................................154.6. Numeral............................................................................................................................................164.7. Currency...........................................................................................................................................16

4.8. White Spaces....................................................................................................................................164.9. Fonts.................................................................................................................................................174.10. Collations.......................................................................................................................................174.11. Singular & Plural forms.................................................................................................................174.12. Program Syntax, Functions, Tags, Placeholders............................................................................184.13. Legal Statement..............................................................................................................................184.14. Product/Brand/Company Name.....................................................................................................184.15. Keys Name.....................................................................................................................................194.16. Acronyms.......................................................................................................................................194.17. Honorific Usages............................................................................................................................20

5. Gujarati Terminology...............................................................................................................................215.1. FUEL Gujarati Glossary...................................................................................................................21

6. Punctuations & Text Conventions...........................................................................................................23

7. Units and Measurements..........................................................................................................................297.1.Volume, Weight, Length...................................................................................................................297.2. Power, Temperature, Electricity.......................................................................................................307.3. Time Units........................................................................................................................................307.4. Information Units.............................................................................................................................30

8. General Spelling Guidelines....................................................................................................................318.1. Anusvar and Chandravindu .............................................................................................................318.2. Transliteration of Foreign Words.....................................................................................................318.3. Cardinals, Ordinals, Multiplicative and Fraction.............................................................................328.4. Hyphen.............................................................................................................................................32

9. Basic Quality Parameters.........................................................................................................................33

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9.1. Language and Grammar...................................................................................................................339.2. Terminology.....................................................................................................................................339.5. Culture Specific................................................................................................................................349.6. Style..................................................................................................................................................349.7. Compounds ......................................................................................................................................349.8. Gender..............................................................................................................................................359.9. Genitive ...........................................................................................................................................35

10. Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................36

Bibliography & Further Reading.................................................................................................................37

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1. W H Y ?

Whenever we are touching a key on a keyboard for translating anything into Gujarati, we are havinggreat responsibility. The responsibility of conveying the message of any source text into Gujarati is having theresponsibility to convey to the millions of users. And so the problem is acute. Gujarati is not just a language inIndia. Gujarati is not just one culture of India. Combine many languages, many cultures, many dialects, many traditions the one result you will get is Gujarati.

Language is like a running water. The field of computer translation is very new and so lot of experiments arehappening daily. Till today, in open content zone, there is nothing like a style guide that can be used by normalusers. The style guide will be helpful in making the translation continuously better. More fair, More accurate,More consistent. It will try to connect better with the audiences. This is not a simple do and don't. The style &convention guide will try to help translators and interested localization engineers in increasing understandability of several aspects of translating any text in Gujarati. This guide will talk about Fonts, Collation, Numerals,Calendar, Acronym, Glossaries, Punctuations, White Spaces, Message Lengths, to name a few. These are the very basic things but these aspects need much attention and also the understanding of these things are mandatory for

a translator before translating any text in Gujarati.

Questions can arise that following a style guide can be a hindrance in the development of any language.But the fact is that style guide is not a barrier in the development of language but it helps in the developmentof a language by making any text more useful and understandable for a group of people. Particularly it isimportant and almost mandatory for technical translation. For example, when we are translating any manual,software etc. some sort of consistency is needed to make user comfortable with the user interface, its manualetc.

A proper communications is very much necessary particularly in the case of Open Source and Freesoftware communities where continuously new translators are joining in their community team and start

working on their language. They should know the method and ways by which translation are being done inthe community. So there should be some set of guidelines for the volunteers who are coming in the filed of translation. Apart from tools to translate and translators' know how, three important resources are required:1. Terminology, 2. Translation Style and conventions Guide, and 3. Quality Assessment Guidelines and relatedMatrix. But we lack the above mentioned resources in Gujarati. Particularly in open content there is nothing

7 | 1. Why?

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COMPUTER TRANSLATION STYLE & CONVENTION GUIDE FOR GUJARATI

except some Wikipedia pages that can be freely quoted and used by the community. So this is one movetowards creating these resources.

At present, we can say that Gujarati is spread over whole of India with different slang and understandingand . So being a translator we need to be more cautious in translating into Gujarati. For the wideracceptability and to lessen the confusion, we should follow one particular style and convention for thelanguage. Therefore this guide is prepared for Gujarati and its translators and localisers communities.

8 | 1. Why?


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2. W H AT I S G U J A R AT I ?

According to WikiPedia, Gujarati (Gujarati : ( Gujar t ) is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of thegreater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati (1100 - 1500 AD)

which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages. making it the 26th most spokennative language in the world. There are about 65.5 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, Gujarati is one of thetwenty-two official languages and fourteen regional languages of India. It is officially recognized in the state of Gujarat, India. making it the 26th most spoken native language in the world. Along with Romany and Sindhi, it isamong the most western of Indo-Aryan languages.

The Gujarati script ( Guj r t Lipi ), which like all N gar writing systems is strictly speaking an abugida rather than an alphabet, is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. It is a variant of Devan gar script differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a smallnumber of modifications in the remaining characters. With a few additional characters, added for this purpose,the Gujarati script is also often used to write Sanskrit.

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3. W H O S H O U L D T R A N S L AT E ?

This is a very basic question. Who should translate? A general assumption is that anybody who knowsthe two languages, ie the source language and the target language, can translate. It is entirely not true.Translation is an art. It needs a level of experience, a good level of knowledge of the subject matter beingtranslated and art of translating.

Being native is one of the important criteria and it should be also. Just you are native, you know theseveral inherent complexity of the language easily. But it is noted that nativity is not a static thing. If you liveaway from your native language speaking area from long time, it is being eroded slowly and in this condition,there is a tendency of forgetting the small know-how of the language as well. So in this case, it is imperativethat a translator should enrich him/herself by listening native language news, reading newspaper, magazineand attending conferences related to native language issues etc.

But being native should not be the only criteria. Expertise on subject matter and experience of doingtranslation are added advantage for a person interested in doing the translation. So if any person who is newto this field, she/he should be aware of what already has happened in the field or community if the project isunder any community participation.

Translation is not just a profession. Translation creates a bridge between two distinct culture, two distinctlocale. So it needs, apart from just professionalism, a feeling towards your language, a passion to see yourlanguage on computer, mobile, web or any hand held device. The scene of ICT is changing very fast and it isour duty to create all computing related interface a great place for Gujarati.

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4. G E N E R A L T R A N S L AT I O N S

G U I D E L I N E S

Before starting translating in Gujarati, there are few things we must know For example, Characters,Fonts, Date, Time, Days, Month, Currency, Collation, Numerals, Calendar, Acronym, Glossaries, Punctuations,White Spaces, Message Lengths, to name a few.

4.1 C H A R A C T E R S

Country/Region India

Lower-case characters n/a

Upper-case characters n/a

Characters in caselessscripts

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Extended Latin characters n/a

Total number of characters 51

Unicode codes u0A81, u0A82,

u0A83, u0A85, u0A86, u0A87 , u0A88,

u0A89, u0A8A, u0A8B, u0A8D, u0A8F , u0A90, u0A91, u0A93, u0A94, u0A95, u0A96, u0A97 , u0A98, u0A99,

u0A9A, u0A9B, u0A9C, u0A9D, u0A9E, u0A9F, u0AA0 ,

u0AA1, u0AA2, u0AA3, u0AA4 , u0AA5 , u0AA6 , u0AA7 ,

u0AA8, u0AAA , u0AAB , u0AAC, u0AAD, u0AAE, u0AAF,

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u0AB0, u0AB2, u0AB3, u0AB5, u0AB6, u0AB7, u0AB8,

u0AB9, u0ABC, u0ABD, u0ABE, u0ABF, u0AC0, u0AC1,

u0AC2, u0AC3, u0AC4, u0AC5, u0AC7, u0AC8, u0AC9,

u0ACB, u0ACC, u0ACD, u0AD0, u0AE0, u0AE6, u0AE7,

u0AE8, u0AE9, u0AEA, u0AEB, u0AEC, u0AED, u0AEE,

u0AEF, u0AF1

4.2 . D ATE


First Day of the Week Monday

First Week of the Year Separator - (Hyphen)

Default Short Date Format d-M-yy

Example 17-3-11

Default Long Date Format dd-MMMM-yyyy

Example 17- -2011

Abbreviations in FormatCodes d is for day, number of d's indicates the format (d= digits without leading zero, dd =digits with leading zero, ddd = the abbreviated day name, dddd = full day name)

M is for month, number of M's gives number of digits. (M = digits without leadingzero, MM = digits with leading zero, MMM = theabbreviated name, MMMM = fullname)

y is for year, number of y's gives number of digits(yy = two digits, yyyy = four digits)

4 .3 . T I M E


24 hour format No



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Standard time format HH:mm:ss

Standard time formatexample

12:33:21; 12:33

Time separator colon : ( )Time separator examples "7:28:52" ;7 . 28 .52 .Hours leading zero No

Hours leading zero example n/a

String for AM designator ; In general language mostly , is used inthe place of AM

String for PM designator ; In general language mostly ( , (noon)),( , (evening)), ( , , , , (night)) is used inthe place of PM

4 .4 . D AYSIs first letter capitalized?: No , capitalization is not applicable in Gujarati.

Day Normal Form Abbreviation

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

4 .5 . M O N T H SIs first letter capitalized?: No , capitalization is not applicable in Gujarati.Month Full Form Abbreviated Form Long Date Form

January . 26 2011

February . 26 2011

March n/a 26 2011

April n/a 26 2011

May n/a 26 2011



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June n/a 26 2011

July n/a 26 2011

August . 26 2011

September . 26 2011October . 26 2011

November . 26 2011

December . 26 2011

4 .6 . N U M E R A L

Gujarati language has its own set of numerals, For convenience and comfort for target user, Community has been decided to use English numerals, So we will use 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 instead of , , , , ,

, , , , and .

4 .7 . C U R R E N C Y


Currency Name (Rupee)

Currency Symbol

Currency Symbol Position It is used before the amount. i.e. 200

ISO Currency Code INR

Currency Subunit Name (Paisa)

Currency Subunit Symbol n/a

Currency Subunit Example 25

4 .8 . W H I T E S PA C E S

In computer science, white space is any single character or series of characters that represents horizontal

or vertical space in typography. When rendered, a white space character does not correspond to a visual mark,but typically does occupy an area on a page. There may be different pattern of any language related to white

space. We should properly care and follow the source text and target language rules for placing any extra

white space.



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Source Target (Invalid) Target (Valid)

%s is not a valid location. % s . %s .

Stop loading the document Get User Info

4 .9 . F O N T S

For Translating any documents or any application in Gujarati language, we need to use Unicode basedDevanagari fonts. Eg. Lohit Gujarati, Samyak Gujarati etc. The font should contain a glyph for each allocatedcode point prescribed by Unicode. The font should contain the following: (1) vowels; (2) consonants; (3)glyphs for conjuncts; (4) variants for vowel signs (matras), (5) vowel modifiers (Chandrabindu, Anuswar),(6) digits and (7) punctuation marks.

4 .10. C O L L AT I O N SCollation order is not the same as Unicode point order. There are lot of convention also for collation. So

we will follow the collation table prescribed by Unicode. For collation chart, please check here:

http://unicode.org/charts/collation/chart_Gujarati.html

4 .11. S I N G U L A R & P L U R A L F O R M S

In Gujarati there are two numbers, Singular and Plural. Nouns plural form is denoted by marker o or by adding o matra to the last character. Verb should be changed according to singular and plural. See examples,

Examples

. (Singular) . (Plural)

. (Singular) . (Plural)

. (Singular)

. (Plural)

4 .12. P R O G R A M S Y N TA X , F U N C T I O N S , T AGS , P L A C E H O L D E R S

http://unicode.org/charts/collation/chart_Gujarati.htmlhttp://unicode.org/charts/collation/chart_Gujarati.html


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Never translate program syntax or functions or tags, place holders. Sometimes some translators translatethese as well. We should not translate any of these. This creates major error in translation.

Source Target (Invalid) Target (Valid)

Changes made tothe document in thelast %ld second willbe permanently lost.

% .

%ld .

ClearLocation bar

Clears thecontents of thelocation bar.

< >

.

.

\\Toaccess thisfunction...\\

\\< id=\\\"wie\\\"\\> ...\\

\\

...\\

4 .13. L E G A L S TAT E M E N T

Generally every software has some sort of legal statements associated with the software. Translating legalstatements is general difficult as well as critical. So we should avoid to translate legal statements.

4 .14. P R O D U C T /B R A N D /C O M PA N Y N AME For Product/Brand/Company Name, it is general rule accepted by agencies to keep as it is like English.

In Gujarati, It should not be translated.

Source Target (Invalid) Target (Valid) Context Application

About Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox Firefox

This is the font used todisplay text inKonqueror windows.

.

Konqueror

.

KDE

4 .15. K E Y S N AME

Keys name should not be translated. eg. Backspace, Delete, Enter, caps lock, Control should not betranslated since we still use the same keyboard as English. Though some keyboard came in Gujarati but it isnot still popular.



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Both Ctrl keys togetherchange layout.

.

Ctrl .

gnome-applet

Ctrl Ctrl gok

Type a new accelerator,or press Backspace toclear

Backspace

gedit

NOTE: Name of the keys appearing on keyboard should not be translated.

ALT, CTRL, END, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, SHIFT, TAB, INSERT, DELETE, ENTER, ESC, HOME, INS,NUMPAD ENTER, NUM LOCK, BACKSPACE, BREAK, CAPS LOCK, CLEARA, HOME, BREAK, CAPS LOCK

CLEAR, ALT, END

4 .16. A C R O N Y M S

Acronyms are words made up of the initial letters of major parts of a compound term. Some well-knownexamples are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), or RAM(Random Access Memory). In Gujarati acronyms are formed by taking the first letter or the first syllable of the

word.

Localized Acronyms:

UNESCO UNICEF

'WHO

Unlocalized Acronyms: The following list contains examples of acronyms and abbreviations that are considered commonly

understood; these acronyms and abbreviations should not be localized or spelled out in full in English:

ANSI (American National Standards Institute)

ISO (International Standards Organization)

ISDN

DOS

DSL

CD



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DVD

4 .17. H O N O R I F I C U S A G E S

It is encouraged to use honorific pronoun in Gujarati. So, it is better to use words like , , insteadof , , respectively.Depending upon the context / person to whom one is addressing, tone of you may be translated as

- ' - ' -

Source Target Target

You do not have therequired permissions touse this drive

%s is calling you, doyou want to answer?

%s , ?

%s , ?



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5. G U J A R AT I T E R M I N O L O G Y

Terminology is one of the major area where everybody put their attention in translating any text. There isonly one glossary for Gujarati.

5.1 . FUEL G U J A R AT I G L O S S A RY We will use FUEL as our glossary. You can find FUEL Gujarati glossary from here in pdf format: FUEL

Gujarati . For Other format of file please visit FUEL Gujarati page on FUEL website.

FUEL is a community project working on the problems like inconsistencies and standardisation. TheFUEL Gujarati terminology is released after a community meet in which the Gujarati community discussed onall the terms and later it is released as primary glossary. Please translate using this terminology withconsistency.

21 | 5. Gujarati Terminology

5
https://fedorahosted.org/fuelhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-gujarati/fuel_gujarati.pdfhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-gujarati/fuel_gujarati.pdfhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-gujarati/fuel_gujarati.pdfhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-hindi/fuel_hindi.pdfhttps://fedorahosted.org/fuel/wiki/fuel-gujaratihttps://fedorahosted.org/fuelhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-gujarati/fuel_gujarati.pdfhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-gujarati/fuel_gujarati.pdfhttp://svn.fedorahosted.org/svn/fuel/fuel-hindi/fuel_hindi.pdfhttps://fedorahosted.org/fuel/wiki/fuel-gujarati


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6 . P U N C T U AT I O N S & T E X T

C O N V E N T I O N S

The proper use of text convention and punctuations are very vital in any language. According toWikipedia, Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organisation of written language, as

well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud. In written English, punctuation is vital todisambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, "woman, without her man, is nothing" and "woman:

without her, man is nothing" have greatly different meanings, as do "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shootsand leaves". "King Charles walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off" is alarming; "KingCharles walked and talked; half an hour after, his head was cut off", less so. (For English usage, see thearticles on specific punctuation marks.) The rules of punctuation vary with language, location, register andtime and are constantly evolving. Certain aspects of punctuation are stylistic and are thus the author's (oreditor's) choice. Typographic language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages, may have

wildly different rules. In this section, wikipedia references are mainly used to elaborate and definepunctuations. Here goes the major text convention and punctuations rules for Gujarati.

Text Conventions/Punctuations Usage in English Usage in Gujarati

Bold Bold face text makes text darkerthan the surrounding text. With thistechnique, the emphasized textstrongly stands out from the rest; itshould therefore be used to highlightcertain keywords that are importantto the subject of the text, for easyvisual scanning of text.

It is same as English. So pleasekeep the Bold text as Bold in Gujaratias well.

Italics Text is written in a script style, or theuse of oblique, where the verticalorientation of all letters is slanted tothe left or right. With one or the otherof these techniques (usually only oneis available for any typeface), wordscan be highlighted without makingthem stand out much from the rest ofthe text (inconspicuous stressing).Traditionally, this is used for markingpassages that have a differentcontext, such as words from foreign

It is same as English. So pleasekeep the Italicized text as Italics.

23 | 6. Punctuations & Text Conventions

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languages, book titles, and the like.

Capitalization Capitalization is writing a word withits first letter as a minuscule (upper-case letter) and the remaining lettersin minuscules (lower-case letters), inthose writing systems which have acase distinction. The term is alsoused for the choice of case in text.

There is no upper case letters inGujarati. So in case we need toemphasize, can be done byincreasing the font size. But it shouldbe avoided as well. But making boldor italics is not a good way.

Ellipsis Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from theGreek: , lleipsis, "omission") is a mark or series ofmarks that usually indicate anintentional omission of a word in theoriginal text. An ellipsis can also beused to indicate a pause in speech,an unfinished thought, or, at the endof a sentence, a trailing off intosilence (apostrophes) (apostropheand ellipsis mixed). When placed atthe end of a sentence, the ellipsiscan also inspire a feeling ofmelancholy longing. The ellipsis callsfor a slight pause in speech.

The most common form of an ellipsisis a row of three periods or full stops(...) or pre-composed triple-dot glyph(). The usage of the em dash ()can overlap the usage of the ellipsis.

The triple-dot punctuation mark isalso called a suspension point,points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis,or colloquially, dot-dot-dot. Ellipses is

written as one unit.

Same as English

Double Quote Quotation marks or inverted commas(informally referred to as quotes[1]and speech marks) are punctuationmarks used in pairs to set offspeech, a quotation, a phrase, or a

word. They come as a pair of

opening and closing marks in eitherof two styles: single ('') or double(""). Single or double quotationmarks denote either speech or aquotation. Neither stylesingle ordoubleis an absolute rule, thoughdouble quotation marks are preferredin the United States, and both singleand double quotation marks are

Though it is the choice of the authoror translator, but it would be better ifit should be translated as English.

Whether Single or Double quotation

marks, the first of the pair isgenerally inverted. It is similar toother European languages otherthan English.



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used in the United Kingdom. Apublishers or authors style may takeprecedence over national generalpreferences. The important rule isthat the style of opening and closingquotation marks must be matched.

Single Quote Quotation marks or inverted commas(informally referred to as quotes[1]and speech marks) are punctuationmarks used in pairs to set offspeech, a quotation, a phrase, or a

word. They come as a pair ofopening and closing marks in eitherof two styles: single ('') or double("").Single or double quotationmarks denote either speech or aquotation. Neither stylesingle ordoubleis an absolute rule, thoughdouble quotation marks are preferredin the United States, and both singleand double quotation marks areused in the United Kingdom. Apublishers or authors style may takeprecedence over national generalpreferences. The important rule isthat the style of opening and closingquotation marks must be matched.

Though it is the choice of the authoror translator, but it would be better ifit should be translated as English.

Whether Single or Double quotationmarks, the first of the pair isgenerally inverted. It is similar toother European languages otherthan English.

Square Brackets Square brackets also called simplybrackets (US) are mainly used toenclose explanatory or missingmaterial usually added by someoneother than the original author,especially in quoted text. Examplesinclude: appreciate it [the honor]but I must refuse.

Same as English

Curly Brackets Curly brackets also called braces(US) or flower brackets (India) aresometimes used in prose to indicatea series of equal choices. Example:"Select your animal {goat, sheep,cow, horse} and follow me".

Same as English

Round Brackets Parentheses (singular, parenthesis) also called simply brackets (UK),or round brackets, curved brackets,oval brackets, or, colloquially, parens contain material that could beomitted without destroying or alteringthe meaning of a sentence.Parenthetical phrases have beenused extensively in informal writingand stream of consciousness

Same as English



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literature. Parentheses may be usedin formal writing to addsupplementary information.

Inequality Signs The mathematical or logical symbolsfor greater-than (>) and less-than (


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with several uses. The Italian printerAldus Manutius the Elder establishedthe practice of using the semicolonmark to separate words of opposedmeaning, and to indicateinterdependent statements.[1] The

earliest, general use of thesemicolon in English was in 1591;Ben Jonson was the first notableEnglish writer to use themsystematically. The modern uses ofthe semicolon relate either to thelisting of items, or to the linking ofrelated clauses.

Question Mark A question mark [ ? ] is used at theend of any direct question. But inindirect question, it is not used. Ingeneral, we should avoid usingquestion mark with other punctuationmark (eg. [ !? ]).

Same as English.

Exclamation Mark An exclamation mark, exclamationpoint, shout pole, or bang (!) is apunctuation mark usually used afteran interjection or exclamation toindicate strong feelings or highvolume, and often marks the end ofa sentence. There should be nospace between last letter and theexclamation mark. If a title havingexclamation mark is coming at theend of one sentence, we should notput full stop. Example: "Watch out!"The character is encoded in Unicodeat U+0021.

Same as English. In general,Gujarati error messages end withexclamation mark.

Slash A slash is generally being used toshow choice between words itseparates. The slash is also used toindicate a line break when quotingmultiple lines from a poem, play, orheadline.

Same as English

Apostrophe An apostrophe is used in English toindicate possession. The practiceultimately derives from the OldEnglish genitive case: the of case,itself used as a possessive in manylanguages. The genitive form ofmany nouns ended with the inflection-es, which evolved into a simple -sfor the possessive ending. Anapostrophe was later added toreplace the omitted e, not his as is

No apostrophe is used in Gujarati.



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and was widely believed.



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7. U N I T S AND

M E A S U R E M E N T S

The Republic of India adopted the metric system on April 1, 1957. So basic measurement units for weight is gram/kilogram, length is meter/kilometer, liquid volume is milliliter/liter. It is the correct andaccepted way for Gujarati as well. However, other units are still prevalent but particularly for technicaltranslation, we need to follow the metric system. Except for measuring body temperature, generally temperature in India is measured in Celsius. So for Gujarati translation, it should be changed in Celsius if insource language, it is in different units.

7.1 . V O L U M E , W E IGHT , L E N G T H 7.2.

English Gujarati Gujarati (Abbreviated)Meter .Kilometer . .Gram .Kilogram . .Liter .Milliliter . .Centimeter . .

Millimeter . .

7.2 . P O W E R , T E M P E R AT U R E , E L E C T R I C I T Y

English Gujarati Gujarati (Abbreviated)

29 | 7. Units and Measurements

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Watt W

Volt V

Joule JHertz Hz

Kilohertz KhzCelsius Fahrenheit F

7.3 . T IME U N I T S


Hour n/a

Minute .Second .

7.4 . I N F O R M AT I O N U NITS


Kilobyte KB ( )Megabyte MB ( )bit n/a

bit/s / . n/a

30 | 7. Units and Measurements


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8. G E N E R A L S P E L L I N G

G U I D E L I N E S

Due to large volume of population and extreme geographical and cultural diversity, there are lot of problems related to the consistency of the spelling in Gujarati. Here are the few points that we shouldconsider during translating any text in Gujarati.

8 .1 . A N U S VA R AND C H A N D R AV I N D U

In the Devanagari script, Anusvar (0902 DEVANAGARI SIGN ANUSVARA) is represented with a dot(bindu) above the letter ( ). Chandravindu (0901 DEVANAGARI SIGN CANDRABINDU) (meaning "moon-dot" in Sanskrit, alternatively spelled candrabindu, chandravindu, candravindu, or ch ndrobindu) is a

diacritic sign having the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle ( ).

Examples:

1. --Anusvar2. -- Chandrabindu

8 .2 . T R A N S L I T E R AT I O N O F F O R E I G N W O R D S

The transliteration of foreign words should be done consistently and we would prefer to use FatherCamile Bulke English to Gujarati Dictionary. According to the recommendation by Commission for Scientificand Technical Terminology, "The transliteration of English terms should not be made so complex as tonecessitate the introduction of new signs and symbols in the present Devanagari characters. The Devanagarirendering of English terms should aim at maximum approximation to the standard English pronunciation withsuch modifications as are prevalent in the educated circle in India." We should try to follow theserecommendation for words adopted from other languages.

31 | 8. General Spelling Guidelines

8


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8 .3 . C A R D I N A L S , O R D I N A L S , M U LT I P L I C AT I V E AND F R A C T I O N

Cardinal numeral forms should be used correctly. Generally we should try to avoid single digit numbersexcept where required. Like cardinals we should use ordinals correctly.


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8 .4 . H Y P H E N

The hyphen is used to divide words between syllables, to link parts of a compound word, and to connectthe parts of an inverted or imperative verb form.

Example- , - , -

32 | 8. General Spelling Guidelines


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9. B A S I C Q U A L I T Y P A R A M E T E R S

While translating any text in Gujarati, we need to follow basic quality parameters to keep our translation

better. These parameters are just for reference. There can be several variations of parameters but here aresome important just to understand errors arising out of the violation of parameters. Several translationagencies are there who did lot of labour in creating parameters. Followings are some outlines whatparameters can be and why we need to give importance to parameters.

9 .1 . L A N G U A G E AND G R A M M A R

The evaluation of a translation with regards to the grammatical components must be governed by thecriterion of correctness. Like most of the developed language Gujarati is also having a grammar and followinggrammar is necessary for consistent and standard text. We should not do any mistake of grammar, spelling,

and punctuation.


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9 .2 . T E R M I N O L O G Y

Terminology is focused on the meaning and conveyance of concepts. The quality of a translation dependson the consistency in use of terms belonging to a specialised area of usage and appropriateness to context.We should use prescribed glossaries and industry related words and register in doing translation. Thedeviation from prescribed glossary, using inconsistent terminology are are errors of terminology.

33 | 9. Basic Quality Parameters

9


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Move Folder To... ... ... evolution

9 .5 . C U LT U R E S P E C I F I C

Sometimes, something in the culture of the source language has a distinctly different cultural value fromthe same thing in the culture of the target language. In such cases, the translator should keep the originalmeaning by adjusting the form of the cultural symbol or adding enough background information to indicate tothe target language users what the original cultural value was. We should follow country specific standardsand cultural references and local conventions in doing translation. For example, we should use metric system.We should use Rupee instead of Dollar during translation.

Source Target (Invalid) Target (Valid) Context ApplicationIndia Gnome LocationEgypt Gnome Location

9 .6 . S T Y L E

In Gujarati we used polite style for audience. The style of writing should be polite, honorable andfriendly so that reader will comfortable with it.

: Example

9.7 . C O M P O U N D S Generally, compounds should be understandable and clear to the user. Overly long or complex compounds

should be avoided. Keep in mind that unintuitive compounds are ultimately an intelligibility and usability

issue.

In Gujarati to compound words or verbs ' ', , are used.Example:

1. .

9.8 . G E N D E RGujarati distinguishes among three genders. They are masculine, feminine and neuter.



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Example:

1. . (Boy is running)-- Masculine2. . (Girl is running)-- Feminine3. . (Dog is sleeping)-- Neuter

But this rule also has some exceptions. We cannot blindly follow this to determine the gender of any object.

Like we use feminine gender for File and neuter for Folder.

Example:

1. . --Feminine2. . --Masculine

3. .--Neuter

9.9 . G E N I T I V E Genitive case in Gujarati (Possessive case or Second case). This is used as per objects gender or verb. In

Gujarati the genitive case markers are: - , , , ,.

Example:

1. , - .2. , - .3. , - .4. , - .



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10. C O N C L U S I O N

In this guide, effort is given to encompass all major language related areas for Gujarati. By following thisguide, we assume that we can create a content in more consistent and standardised way. But we cannot say

that the list given above is final. We can add several areas as well but to be precise and brief, we have ignoredsome of the well known points as well. But if you feel that anything important we have missed, please send

you feedback at the mailing list [email protected] or file an issue at our project page herehttps://fedorahosted.org/fuel .

36 | 10. Conclusion

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mailto:[email protected]://fedorahosted.org/fuelmailto:[email protected]://fedorahosted.org/fuel


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B I B L I O G R A P H Y & F U R T H E R R E A D I N G

We have taken reference from lots of places distributed at different places all over online and print. Hereare the list that can be used for further reading and explanations.

1.Wikipedia

2.gujaratilexicon.com4.Open Mailing List Discussions like Indianoss, floss-gujarat, etc.

fuel translation style and convention guide gujarati

Documents