Re: [Groff] german groffinfo translation

[Werner LEMBERG]

Sorry for the late reply.

> some weeks ago there was the idea of trying a german translation of
> groff documentation, perhaps starting with the groff.info.  (My
> original Idea was to translate the planned paper on macro writing.)

This probably makes more sense since I fear we don't have the
manpower to always update a German translation.  Well, my mother
tongue is German but...

> Well there are some questions and preliminaries, and I think I'll
> need some supervising, be it only to prevent that I do something
> like ``friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears'' ==>
> ,,Freunde, Roemer, Landsleute, verleihen Sie mir Ihre Ohren`` :)

As you may know, the right German translation of `Ovum, ovum, quod
lacus ego' is `Ei, ei, was seh' ich' :-)

> (1) To begin with I wonder whether this world wide group is the
>     right place to diskuss my try and its results.

It is IMHO.

> (2) I guess there are existing conventions for the translation of
>     key terms like ``request'', ``trap'' oder ``leader'' etc. (not
>     to mention the licence) that I can't possibly know, and there
>     might be several problems of this sort.  Then, there will be
>     cases in which I don't get the idea and the sense of the
>     original text.  In short I'd like to have someone who looks at
>     what I'm doing from time to time.

I must admit that I've never seen those terms translated into
German.  Some people on this list have mentioned books about troff in
German.  Please have a look and report your findings!

> (3) A reasonable way I think could be is (but is it really?) that I
>     take the groff texinfo.texi source code and just replace the
>     english text by the german version so that the node structure
>     remains the same.

Texinfo provides a grouping mechanism for that.  Example:

@clear de
@clear us
@set de

...

@ifset us
English version
@end ifset
@ifset de
Deutsche Version
@end ifset

>     I've some bits of experience with Latex.  --- The tarballs at
>     the groff homepage don't seem to contain the texinfo source.  Or
>     didn't I look close enough?  If I'd try the translation, where
>     can I get the groffinfo.texi source, or how am I to manage this
>     more technical side?

It is in the `doc' subdirectory.


    Werner