Hello there!
The second month of the year is over, and the end of the first quarter is on the horizon. Time sure is moving fast! We have already seen calls for proposals and registrations for major digital rights events and conferences happening this year! Which ones are you attending?
Community Updates
This past month we commemorated Safer Internet Day, World Radio Day and International Mother Language Day. Take a look at our social media accounts (Twitter and Facebook) to see what we think of these days and our hopes and aspirations for a more inclusive and safe space for all in 2024.
Localization Lab was also recently included in the 2024 Responsible Tech Organizations! The list features organizations concerned with reducing the harms of tech, diversifying the tech pipeline, and ensuring that technology is aligned with the public interest.
The Responsible Tech Organizations list is curated by All Tech is Human, an organization that brings together people, organizations, and ideas to grow and strengthen the Responsible Tech ecosystem, and co-create a tech future aligned with the public interest.
Community Events
Community Training Series
Localization Lab will be running the second training session, Translation Strategies, within its three-part series on March 14, 2024. The Community Training sessions seek to equip our volunteer contributors (both new and experienced), with skills and knowledge of how to navigate translation and review work on our existing platforms. Our ‘Getting Started’ series will run from February to April 2024 and will cover best practices in translation, translation strategies, and glossary management.
The Mayense Languages Digital Activism Summit
Localization Lab attended La Cumbre de Activismo Digital de Lenguas Mayenses (The Mayense Languages Digital Activism Summit), which took place from January 17th to January 20th in Chiapas, Mexico. The event was created to facilitate spaces for learning and exchange between digital activists and their communities who work to promote, preserve, and revitalize Mayense languages in Mexico and beyond. The event aimed to spread awareness of the projects and tools for promoting, preserving, and revitalizing Mayan languages in digital spaces, and create a community of activists to build solidarity networks, share learning, encourage collaboration, and amplify the work that speakers are already doing to defend their language.
The event served as a great opportunity for Localization Lab to connect with the communities speaking indigenous Latin-American languages, such as Wayuunaiki and Nasa Yuwe, and better understand the prevailing local context and challenges. It was also an opportunity to introduce these communities to the Localization Lab’s work, the tools, and projects that are localized in their languages, and talk about the ways we can support each other in the future.
The month in numbers!
This month, we translated a total of 170,923 words, edited 91,497 words, and reviewed 58,929 words.
Wow, we collectively worked on 321,349 words - thank you community!
Support needed to localize tools and resources
A lot of projects are still underway, see below. We appreciate any help we can get in making these tools and resources available in local languages. If you find a project on the list that your community would benefit from and you’d like to support by localizing, please reach out to us and we’ll onboard you.
Psiphon (Amharic, Brazilian Portuguese, Tigrinya, Oromo but other languages are also welcome!)
Psiphon ‘How-To’ summary guide (Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Farsi)
Mailvelope (Spanish)
SAFETAG (Arabic, Burmese, French, Russian, Spanish)
Bitmask (Arabic, Traditional Chinese, Farsi, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian but other languages are also welcome!)
Onionshare (Aymara, Kurdish (Central), Tagalog, Danish, Basque, Georgian, Esperanto, Bengali, Norwegian Bokmål, Filipino, Tibetan, Irish, Slovak, Dutch, Portuguese (Portugal), Slovenian, Swahili, Italian, Russian, Afrikaans, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Traditional), Finnish, French, Greek, Icelandic, Swedish, Vietnamese)
Tor (please see here what the high-priority languages are!)
Tella (Belarusian, Burmese, French, Indonesian, Jingpho, Kannada, Russian, Tamil)
Shira (Hindi, Indonesian, Russian, Swahili)
User feedback needed
These projects are also seeking user feedback.
If you have time, play with these tools and let us know your thoughts. Do you like them, did you notice any issues with translations, design, user experience, or anything else? Please send us your thoughts at adriano@localizationlab.org or maja@localizationlab.org.
Are you interested in becoming a contributor?
We’re also (always) looking for new contributors. If you know anyone who might be interested in joining our community, send them this sign-up link. You can also send us their contact information, and we will personally invite them to join.
Warmly,
Chido, Dianne, Maja, Adriano, and the rest of the Localization Lab team
Fun fact: Did you know that Localization Lab is a member of the Global Coalition of Language Rights?
The Global Coalition of Language Rights is a group of organizations that work at the intersection of language, digital, and human rights.
Recently, the Coalition held its annual Global Language Advocacy Days for 2024 (#GLAD24), a global event that unites language rights advocates, activists, and organizations in a coordinated effort to raise awareness and ignite meaningful conversations about the crucial importance of language rights. You can take a look here to see some of the initiatives undertaken for 2024.