GILT: Globalization, Internationalization, Localization,
Translation
Reprinted by permission from Globalization Insider,
Volume XI, Issue 1.5.Copyright the Localization Industry
Standards Association (LISA: www.lisa.org) and S.M.P.
Marketing Sarl (SMP) 200x. March 22, 2002
Authors
Pierre Cadieux, Technology Editor, LISA Newsletter Bert
Esselink, Chief Editor, Language Internationational
As the title suggests, we should perhaps feel a little GILTy
that of the above four terms, only translation is generally well
understood. In a past issue of the LISA newsletter, Donald DePalma
and Hans Fenstermacher argued that our industry cannot even agree
on what globalization, internationalization and localization mean.
Don and Hans also pointed out the lack of "coopetition", i.e.
collaboration among competitors, in our industry.
This article is a modest first step in what we believe is the
right direction. It is an example of coopetition between two
periodicals focusing on the language industry towards a simple
objective that is beneficial to our whole industry: clarifying our
most basic terms. This article will be published, more or less
simultaneously, in both periodicals. We hope that others will take
similar small steps…
From the dictionary
Why do we need definitions? Is the dictionary not enough?
Consider the following table that was built using the
Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/). We
searched for the GILTy terms and for "locale"; the results are
sorted by date.
translation 14th century rendering from one language into
another
locale 1772 a place or locality especially when viewed in relation
to a particular event or characteristic
localization 1792 to make local: orient locally
internationalization 1864 to make international
globalization 1944 to make global
It is interesting to note how old these terms all are (and the
dates here are for the English language; a concept such as
translation is obviously much older). It is also interesting to
note that globalization was introduced towards the end of World War
II. Although the last three definitions are not extremely
enlightening, it remains that all five definitions are quite
compatible with their current use in our industry. To be precise,
only the terms locale and internationalization require a slight
semantic shift in our industry. To illustrate this semantic shift,
just compare the above definition of locale to the one provided by
the Sun Solaris Operating System Manual: "a collection of files,
data, and sometimes code, that contains the information needed to
adapt Solaris to local market needs".
A short history
In the beginning, or shortly thereafter, there were people. And
when one people met another people, translation was born[1]. Then,
somewhat later, came software. And when people started translating
software, some of the changes required were not, strictly speaking,
translation: changes to character encoding's, date and time
formats, sorting rules, etc. The term localization was used to more
generally describe any changes required to adapt a product to the
needs of a particular group of people generally in the same
physical location or locale; in short, to make local as the
dictionary suggests.
A locale in our industry identifies a group of people by their
common language and cultural conventions; the group may or may not
be in the same physical location. French-Canadians, for example,
are present mainly in the province of Quebec, but there are several
other groups in Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick. In our
industry, the word locale has become a virtual location, more akin
to the concept of culture. To wit, we name locales by
language-country pairs; for example, French-Canada is one locale,
while French-France is another.
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Definition:
Localization of a thing is adapting a thing to the needs of a
given locale.
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When multiple localization efforts were performed on the same
product, it became obvious that certain steps could be performed in
advance to make localization easier: separating translatable text
strings from the executable code, for example. This was referred to
as internationalization or localization-enablement. This definition
represents a shift away from the dictionary: internationalization,
in our industry, is only the first step in the overall process of
making international, as the dictionary suggests.
Finally, when the "rest of the world" gained in importance, it
was a marketing imperative to have a strategy to sell all over the
world: a so-called globalization strategy! Unfortunately, when this
commercial term was imported into the more technical space of
globalizing products, two different definitions arose.
The IBM internationalization glossary at
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/glossaries/unicode.html
shows:
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globalization
The process of developing, manufacturing, and marketing software
products that are intended for worldwide distribution. This term
combines two aspects of the work: internationalization (enabling
the product to be used without language or culture barriers) and
localization (translating and enabling the product for a specific
locale).
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The Microsoft glossary at http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/Glossary.asp
shows:
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Globalization
Designing and implementing software so that it can support all
targeted locales and user interface languages without modification
to the software source itself. This processing includes enabling
for all target languages, and adding NLS support for target
locales.
...
Internationalization:
See Globalization
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From perusing about 6 other glossaries, it seems about evenly
split: Mozilla agrees with Microsoft, eLocale agrees with IBM,
etc.
Globalization
The word globalization is a mine field these days. In the news,
it is used to mean economic globalization which, the
anti-globalization groups counter, should be preceded by
globalization of social programs and human rights. While these uses
of the word are totally out of the scope of this article, it is
interesting to note that both sides agree on what globalization
means, namely to make global - as the dictionary suggests.
The globalization of a thing - be it a social program, a
marketing strategy, a web site, or a software product - is simply
about spreading a thing to several different countries, and making
it applicable and useable in those countries. We suggest therefore
that our industry should follow the general meaning the word
globalization already has in other domains, which is simply the
dictionary meaning.
Another important aspect to globalization is that it is never
all-encompassing; the target is never all the countries nor all the
languages of the world. In fact, of the approximately 6,000
languages on the planet today, typical globalization efforts rarely
target more than six at a time.
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Definition:
Globalization of a thing consists in adapting a thing to the needs
of N locales.
Formula:
GLOBALIZATION = N * LOCALIZATION
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Internationalization
So where does internationalization fit into the above formula?
Although we did not need the internationalization concept to define
the objective of globalization, we will need it to define an
effective globalization process.
To define internationalization, let's consider a couple of
examples:
Internationalization of source code consists, among other
things, of centralizing text strings in resource files to make it
easier for the translator to do his job (and avoid accidental
changes to source code).
Internationalization of documentation may consist in enforcing a
consistent writing style, standard terminology, controlled grammar
rules, to make the text easier to translate (and avoid
errors).
It is clear that the general purpose of internationalization is to
make translation and localization easier (and avoiding errors thus
increasing quality). It seems the original definition of
internationalization as localization-enablement was the correct
one.
That is the most general and fundamental intent: if you are
going to do localization N times, it makes sense to work out what
operations you can perform just once beforehand so that it makes
the next N steps easier. If you consider the on-going maintenance
of a product, internationalization is effective even in the N=1
case. But as the world gets smaller and smaller, we see N=6, 10,
12, etc. In such cases, internationalization is simply
inevitable.
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Definition:
Internationalization of a thing consists in any and all
preparatory tasks that will facilitate subsequent localization of
said thing.
The purpose of internationalization is to make localization
easier, faster, higher quality and more cost-effective.
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Some may be surprised or disappointed not too see the more usual
definitions:
"internationalization consists in making something language
independent"
"internationalization consists in externalizing localizable
items"
These so-called definitions suffer from several faults:
they are tasks, not fundamental definitions, and they are an
incomplete list
they are too specific; eg. they don't apply well to
internationalization of documentation
even as tasks involved specifically in software
internationalization, they still fail to describe the true nature
of the activity (we intend to clarify the fundamentals of software
internationalization in a separate article)
A good definition tells us what something is, not how it is done.
The definition above defines internationalization for what it truly
is, in a very general way, independent of the specific thing to be
internationalized. By reminding us that internationalization is a
very general idea, by reminding us that many people can contribute
in many different ways, it will ultimately allow us to generate a
better, more complete list of tasks for the specific thing to be
internationalized.
The new formula for an efficient process thus becomes:
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GLOBALIZATION =
INTERNATIONALIZATION + N * LOCALIZATION
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The "GILT slide" below puts it all together.
Globalization is a two-step process: internationalization and
localization.
There are usually several localization efforts happening in
parallel.
Translation is often the largest part of localization.
So what about translation?
To complete our quartet of terms, we can show how translation fits
into these key processes. Once again, we can probably rely on the
vernacular understanding of the word and say that translation
refers to the specifically linguistic operations, performed by
human or machine, that actually replaces the expressions in one
natural language into those of another. This has the effect of
making translation just one task - possibly the most time
consuming, costly and vital, but as we have seen not the only one -
in adapting something to the needs of the given locale.
An interesting phenomenon is that much of today's new, emerging
publishing standards, such as content management systems and XML,
place a new focus on the art of translation. Where localization
previously incorporated translation as "just one" of the
activities, these new publishing standards strip all the
complexities from the raw text, i.e. separate layout and structure
from the "content", which is one of the primary goals of
internationalization. This means translators in localization can
finally start focusing on what they should really be focusing on -
changing one natural language into another.
We can see more and more practices and technologies that were
previously very specific to the "localization world" entering into
the more traditional translation industry. For example, translation
memory tools are now commonly used by translators who translate
material which is not software related. Similarly, legal
translators may be faced with XML documentation while life sciences
translators may have to translate a piece of software running on a
medical device.
As humanity evolves, so do languages and definitions. The
concepts of translation and localization may progressively merge.
Localization may no longer be a separate discipline since sooner or
later all translators will have to know at least the basics of
localization - from translation to localization, and back
again.
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[1] In the very early days before writing and communication, a
different location meant a different language.
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Pierre Cadieux (pcadieux@i18n.ca) is president of i18N Inc. (www.i18n.ca), a firm specializing in
internationalization training and consulting for embedded systems,
shrink-wrap software and Web sites. Pierre is the Technology Editor
of the LISA Newsletter. Formerly VP Technology at Alis, he
pioneered the transparent handling of Arabic and Hebrew languages
and created the core bidirectional technology licensed by
Microsoft. As Director of Localization Technology at Browne Global
Solutions, he published the first generic model of Web
globalization technologies. Pierre also regularly presents
workshops at LISA events
Bert Esselink has been active in multilingual publishing
projects for over a decade. After graduating in technical
translation in Maastricht and doing coursework in computational
linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, he worked for several
years as a localization specialist and consultant for various
localization firms. Early 2000 he joined Lionbridge's consulting
group. The second edition of his book, A Practical Guide to
Localization, was published in September 2000 and is used widely
throughout the localization industry. Bert is also one of the
editors-in-chief of Language International, the magazine for
language industry professionals. He can be contacted at bert_esselink@lionbridge.com.