Adding a language for translation

CLOSED This issue is closed by Nemo_bis

Hello, I'm a developer working on a wiki-dictionary for the Balinese language (using the latin alphabet), which doesn't yet seem to have a MediaWiki translation. We will need to make at least a superficial translation of the MediaWiki interface for the project and would be interested in contributing it to the translatewiki project. It doesn't seem to be available in the language selection here, so how does one go about contributing?

You can start a Wiktionary at incubator:Wt/ban, if that helps. To get the language added to MediaWiki, you should finish translating the 500 most used messages, currently 12 % translated (last activity in December 2012 by ‎Naval Scene, ‎NoiX180 and ‎M. Adiputra[1]). Do you think you can mange?

Thanks for the fast reply Nemo. I'll speak to the team and see what's possible.

Hi nemo, The team is ready to contribute to the Balinese translation for MediaWiki. Since the process to apply to be a translator requires that you select a language, and Balinese cannot be selected as a language, how should they get translation rights? Thanks

Ouch. They'll have to visit Special:CreateAccount and then add a request at Project:Translator.

Thanks Nemo. That's done, but due to poor internet connectivity they've realised they're not going to be able to use the online tool. We've downloaded the export and will translate offline with Poedit. How should we go about getting this imported back into TranslateWiki, given that nobody on the team is an established "trusted" translator on TranslateWiki?

That's sad to hear. How poor is the connectivity? They may get better results with the tux=0 interface. If that doesn't work, just let me know the usernames and I'll add the rights; usually we ask a first test import, but assuming you're keeping an eye on their edits it's more important for them to quickly upload their changes.

Hi Nemo, Thanks for the help and the offer for import rights. In the end they got by with the interface ok despite poor connectivity, so luckily we can avoid the bulk import route. They're making good progress over at the most used message group. So far they're up to 347 of 479, but the progress is reported as only 27% - any idea why? Do translations need to be approved to count? Yours

347 is the number of untranslated messages.

Strictly speaking you will need to translate 18% of the Mediawiki core messages to start exporting to MediaWiki. This is currently 544 messages, which is 66 more than the 478 most-used messages. See FAQ. Also, if one or two of the most-used messages are very very difficult to translate, then you could translate more of the core messages instead, for now, and return to the difficult ones later.

Indeed. I see ban is now at 14 % translation, wonderful. Just a little step further is needed for the language to be created.[1]

Thanks Nemo. We thought it was just the most used message group that needed to be completed. I'll follow up and get us up to 18%.