Table of Contents

Greenstone Language Support

The Greenstone interfaces have been fully or partially translated into over 60 languages. This includes the Greenstone 2 and 3 web interfaces, the Librarian Interface, the greenstone installers, and collection building scripts. The system is growing and language interfaces become out-dated as new features are added to the software. For each language, we hope to have a volunteer (or several) who undertakes to periodically maintain the interfaces for that language.

Multilingual facilities are only maintained for the latest version of Greenstone. Users who have an older version without the desired language should upgrade to the latest version. Note that for partially translated interfaces, non-translated text appears in English.

Supported Languages

Here is a list of currently supported languages (i.e. languages which come when you download a binary or checkout Greenstone from SVN) and their past and present maintainers.

LanguageMaintainerPast Maintainers and Contributers
English(NZDL Project)
AmharicYohannes Mulugeta, Nebyou Azanaw, Yodahe ZemichaelAbiyot Bayou
ArabicKamal Salih Mustafa Khalafala, Usama Salama
ArmenianTigran Zargaryan
BengaliDilara Moni, Faisal HasanPrasenjit Majumder
BulgarianKrum Kelov
BurmeseKyaw Lwin, Dwight Martin
CatalanEduardo del Valle Pérez, Universitat de les Illes Balears
Chinese (Simplified)Andrew Yan Han, Jing Wu Kevin Fong, Anna Huang
Chinese (Traditional)Lilly HoShu-Jen Show
CroatianRobert PavičićBoris Bosancic
CzechMartin SchulzJakub Řehan
DariAfghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
DivehiFathmath Shiham Aminath Riyaz
DutchGerhard Riesthuis, Elke Duncker-Gassen
FarsiAzad Paknejad, Mohammad Hassanzadeh, Reza Monajjemi and Peyman Heydarian Mohammad Karimi Yazdi
Finnish Steve Legrand
French(UNESCO) John Rose and team including Julie Verleyen (temporarily - candidates are invited), Yvan Arnaud, Emmanuel NgoiAntonin Benoit Diouf,Georges Braoudakis, Vianou Francois Godonou, Sandraghassen S. Pillai, Guillaume Hatt, Celine Guimbertaud, Maxime Rouast
Gaelic (Scottish)Laurinda Matheson and Rita Campbell
Galician Xaquín Lores
GeorgianGeorge Varamishvili, Vano TsertsvadzeGeorge Varamishvili, Vano Tsertsvadze
GermanNora HausenSheshagiri R. Kulkarni LIS Department of Humboldt University, Doris Jung
GreekMaria TsoniDimitris Gavrilis
GujaratiLavji Zala
Hebrew
HindiK.T AnuradhaB. S. Shivaram
HungarianFerenc Katai and Sándor Koroknai
IndonesianPaul Mundy, Dewa Asmara Widjaksana
ItalianJulian FoxMarco Michelino, Massimo Pesenti, Vittore Casarosa
JapaneseGaku Yamaguchi and Kazuhiro TakeuchiMaruf Hasan
KannadaS.K. Lalitha and K. S. Raghavan from Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science, Bangalore.B. S. Shivaram, K. T. Anuradha, Pradeep Kumar.U.M., Prof. A. Neelameghan, K.N. Prasad
Kazakh(UNESCO) Sergey Karpov and Kalima Tuenbaeva both from UNESCOBolatbek Amanbekov, Zhanat Kulenov
Khmer (Cambodian)Alexis Lecoq Project Manager of for Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum ArchivesKosona Chriv, Smart Consulting (see below)
KurdishPeyman Heydarian
Kyrgyz Fedor Bakalov
Korean Hilario Seo
LaoAnousak SouphavanhDwight Martin
LatvianRaitis Brodezhonok
MalayalamK. Rajasekharan, M.G. SreekumarK.T Anuradha, Sanjo Jose
MaoriTe Taka Keegan
MarathiShubha Nagarkar
MongolianMendbayar Ichinkhorlo B. Sukhbaatar
NepaliMohan Raj PradhanAnup Poudyal, Shiva Ram Shrestha
NorwegianLara Romsdal
PolishMaciej Jaros, Marcin KarkoszLech Borkowski
Portuguese (Brazil) Eliel Carneiro de Oliveira, Claudia Wanderley, Prof. Adalgisa Pinheiro
Portuguese (Portugal)Antonio Pereira RasgaJosé Borbinha
PushtoGraeme Foster, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
RomanianConstantinescu Nicolaie
Russian(UNESCO) Sergey Karpov and Kalima Tuenbaeva both from UNESCO, Georgy Litvinov, David (Georgy Litvinov's colleague)Sergei Korobitsin, Vyacheslav Bakharev, Galina Bachmanova, Zhanat Kulenov
SerbianBogdan Trifunovic, Vladimir RisojevicTamara Butigan
Serbian (Bosnia Herzegovina)
Sinhala (Sinhalese)Kumarasinghe - BGN Academic Coordinator Open University of Sri LankaHarsha Balasooriya, Assistant Librarian H.G.P. Sujani Chathurika Dilhani from the Open University of Sri Lanka
SlovakTomáš Fiala
Spanish(UNESCO) Jesús Tramullas, Diego Spano
Tamil Prof. A. Neelameghan, and S.K. Lalitha from Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science, Bangalore. V. Chandrakumar, A. Gnanasekar,Dr. Wmen, K.N. Prasad
TeluguProf. R.S.R. Varalakshmi Dr. Vijayalakshmi Balakumar
ThaiNeelawat Intaraksa and Pongtawat Chippimolchai from KIDS-D Project, Asian Institute of TechnologyMaruf Hasan, Dwight Martin
TigrinyaGezae Haile and Yohannes Mulugeta
TurkishÖzcan Kabakçıoğlu and Uğur Bulgan
UkrainianVasyl Tanovsky
UrduAta ur Rehman, Muhammad Shafiq Rana
VietnameseCao Minh Kiem, Vietnam Association of S&T Information (VASTI)

Note, If you are currently a translator for Greenstone or have been one in the past, and if you've not been mentioned in the above list, please contact us at greenstone_team @ waikato.ac.nz. We greatly wish to credit your contribution to Greenstone.

In progress languages

For some languages, a translator has volunteered, but the translated interface is not yet available.

LanguageTranslator
Afan OromoIbsa Idris
AzeriShahram Sedghi
BislamaJudith Hannoun
Dzongkha (Bhutanese)Rinzin Dem
IgboEmmanuel Chukwu
KashmiriGaffar Ahmad Nadim Khan
Kiswahili (Swahili)Africa Jumanne Bwamkuu
Khmer (Cambodian)Kosona Chriv, Smart Consulting
MalayMohd Hilmi
Oneida (Iroquoian)Indigenous Language Institute
SamoanSouth Pacific Hosting (a Lost Samoan business)
SwedishMikael Hiort af Ornäs
TibetanNqawang Tsepag

Scope of Translations

Our guideline is that non-programming users doing standard things with Greenstone should be able to work entirely in their own language; therefore we do not attempt to translate the comments that appear in program code, scripts, or configuration files. The language-dependent text in Greenstone comes in the following places.

Language Maintainers

To register as a designated Greenstone language maintainer, please send a request to the Greenstone team (greenstone_team @ waikato.ac.nz).

There are two methods for working with Greenstone language interface (apart from editing the macro files directly, which is not recommended).

We send you an Excel spreadsheet that contains all the English text strings, with empty cells for the translation. You fill it in and return it, and we install it in Greenstone. This method is probably the best for large-scale translation, but requires Microsoft software.

The Greenstone translator's interface is a Web tool that presents the English text strings needing translation, and provides boxes for entering the translated text. Once submitted, translations are stored in the appropriate language file. The system automatically determines which text strings need translating or updating, and can easily be used to update a language interface.

Generally it is best to use the spreadsheet to create the basic interface and the translation interface to fine tune or update it in the future. In either case you need a username and password, which we supply to designated Greenstone language maintainers.

As soon as you log in, the front page of the translator's interface is presented to you. Read the instructions and start translating! You don't have to translate all the strings in one session – you can stop and continue work later.

This page shows the current translation status of the languages.

Additional resources