Office 2007 Language Interface Packs and spell-checkers for Armenian, Georgian, Telugu, Konkani, Punjabi, Kannada, and Oriya

  • Article

In a recent post, the Language Log was discussing localization of software in under-resourced languages like Yoruba. Mark Liberman noted that, via its « Unlimited Potential Program », Microsoft had probably done more for linguistic diversity than any other software publisher (and perhaps more than the free software community) by providing localized versions of its software in dozens of languages. Meanwhile, the Microsoft Local Language Program has now made available a whole series of new Language Interface Packs for Office 2007. These LIPs enable users to work with user interfaces in their own languages while benefiting from spell-checkers (some of these languages had no speller in earlier versions of Office). They can be downloaded freely from the links you will access if you click on the names of the languages below (five of these languages are spoken in India):

· Armenian (or հայերեն լեզու, if you want to write it in Armenian ; 7 million speakers, including 3 million in Armenia)

· Georgian (4.1 million native speakers; the official language of the Republic of Georgia; anecdotally, consonant clusters are common in Georgian: some words contain up to 8 consecutive consonants, like გვბრდღვნი (gvbrdgvni), you tear us; nouns have 8 cases and verbal morphology is very complex)

· Telugu (or తెలుగు ; one of the four classical languages in India and one of the 22 official languages in this country ; it is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh and is also spoken in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, and Pondicherry)

· Konkani (or कोंकणी; 7,6 million speakers ; one of the official languages of the Republic of India, mainly spoken in the Indian state of Goa; the LIP includes a brand-new speller)

· Kannada (or ಕನ್ನಡ; it is one of the major Dravidian languages of India and the official and administrative language in the Indian state of Karnataka, in the South of India; about 35 million speakers)

· Punjabi (or ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ; Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Punjab region, which is now split between India and Pakistan ; it has 90 million native speakers, which makes it the 11th most widely spoken language in the world).

· Oriya (or ଓଡ଼ିଆ; one of the official languages of India, mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa; about 30 million native speakers; the LIP includes a brand-new spell-checker for that language)