A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
- 100% match
- Segment in a to-be-translated text that precisely matches a segment in an already existing translation memory.
- accelerator key
- See shortcut key and hotkey.
- art
- Images or pictures found in a piece of software, documentation or on a web site to be localized. "Art" can mean very simple things, such as screenshots or icons..
B
- bi-directional (bi-di)
- The combination of language text, written and displayed right-to-left (i.e. Arabic and Hebrew) together with Latin or Cyrillic language text, written and displayed left-to-right.
- bug
- A mistake in the code of a piece of software compromises either functionality or other quality aspects of the software.
- build
- The compilation of multiple software resource files into an executable piece of software.
- build environment
- The tools, methods and procedures used to create software builds
C
- code page
- A table defining the numeric computer code for a specific set of characters, including diacritical characters that are not normally utilized in US English. Software products must reference the correct code page for a target language to be properly represented on screen. Typically, each character is represented by one byte.
- complex script
- Scripts that require special processing to display, print and edit, such as character reordering; contextual shaping; display of combining characters and diacritics.
- computer-aided translation (CAT)
- The process of translating with the help of computers. Commonly used to denote the use of Translation Memory technology.
D
- double-byte character set (DBCS)
- A character set that contains two bytes per characters required to display many languages not covered by single byte code pages. Examples for double byte character languages are both versions Chinese and Japanese.
- desktop publishing (DTP)
- Process of combining text and images into printable document for publication.
E
F
- fuzzy match
- A technique used in translation memory technology. The matching of language segments based on the statistical degree of similarity between the segments. The higher the match percentage, the less editing a translation segments requires in the target document. Also see 100% match.
G
- globalization
- 1. The effort of a company to market its products internationally.
2. Also used as a synonym to internationalization
- glossary
- Monolingual or bi-lingual word list including several descriptive fields. In the software industry the term glossary is often used to refer to a list of bi-lingual strings occurring in localized software.
- glyph
- The graphical representation of a character.
- graphical user interface (GUI)
- Menus and Dialogs and other graphical representations of functions in a software program or on a web application that allow the user to interact with the program and control its functions. Also referred to as UI or User Interface.
H
- hotkey
- Shortcut of key combinations (e.g. CTRL + F) used to access functions in menus. Displayed in resource file as an ampersand before the letter that triggers the shortcut (&)
I
- internationalization (I18N)
- The process of designing and coding a piece of software while taking into account the computational requirements of other languages that this piece of software may be translated into and the cultural requirements that target cultures may have. Also see DBCS and Bi-Di. I18N is the abbreviation for Internationalization, where I denotes the beginning letter, N the ending letter and 18 the number of letters between the two.
- input method editor (IME)
- Software for entering text in large character sets (such as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).
J
K
L
- localization
- Localization means adapting a product to a specific target language or culture. This includes translation of text, adaptation of cultural content and appearance of the graphical user interface.
- localization program/project manager (LPM)
- Person managing the process, schedule and budget of one or several localization projects.
- localization specialist
- Generally this means a person that does the actual translation of the software into a target language. The LS also resized dialogs and other controls, makes sure the content and GUI are culturally appropriate for the target market and communicates with the software localization engineer and the localization program manager about any linguistic or technical issues for the target language product.
- localization tools
- Software written and designed to manage and execute localization projects.
M
- machine translation (mt)
- Translation that is done by a computer software program without the interaction of a human translator. A machine translation program consists of a "grammar" and a "lexicon". Machine translation is used in very specific applications and requires human post-editing.
N
- natural language processing
- The science of processing human lanugage by means of a computer. This includes speech recognition, machine translation, speech generation, intelligent search and many other and functions. Formerly connected mainly to artificial intelligence research, NLP has had a resurgence in recent years.
O
P
- portable document format (pdf)
- TAdobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Format that preserves formatting when ported across platforms. Must be viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader (which can be downloaded from the web for free).
- PostScriptTM
- Language describing the fonts and layout of a page developed by Adobe. PostScript information is important to communicate the graphical aspects of a document in the printing process.
Q
- quality assurance (QA)
- Process to ensure the functional, linguistic and cultural adequacy of a product for a particular market.
R
- recycling
- Re-use of previously translated material in an update of the same text or in a new translation for the purpose of increasing productivity and reduction of translation cost. Also see translation memory.
- repetition
- A segment of text that occurs more than once in the source text but has no previous translation. Repetitions can be added to the translation memory after the first translation and subsequently recycled.
- resizing
- Adapting the size of a graphical user interface element, such as a menu or button to the size of the target language string that labels it. E.g. the button "Cancel" becomes "Abbrechen" in German and needs to be wider in order for the word not to run over the margins.
- resource file (rc file)
- File in which the translatable strings of a software program are kept. The strings are identified by resource ids, so that they can be extracted by localization tools and replaced with the translated string.
- resource identifier (resource id)
- Language describing the fonts and layout of a page developed by Adobe. PostScript information is important to communicate the graphical aspects of a document in the printing process.
S
- screen shot
- A graphic of a particular function in the software product that is placed in documentation to illustrate the explanation of this function to the user.
- shortcut key
- A keyboard combination used to access functions in menus. A quick way to access certain menu commands, such as Copy and Paste.
- simultaneous shipment (sim-ship)
- Releasing several language versions of a software product of a particular product at the same time.
- software localization engineer (sle)
- Person working to ensure the technical integrity of the localized build. This includes making adjustments to the build environment, working with localization tools, fixing localization bugs, and communicating internationalization bugs to the development team.
- source language
- The language in which the product that is to be localized was originally developed. In software developed in the US, typically, the source language is US English, although there is an increase in other source languages around the world. See also target language
- string
- Any logical sequence of characters. In localization a "string" denotes the textual elements (mostly to be translated) in a piece of software, such as menu items, buttons, error messages, or any text occurring in a dialog box.
- Style Guide
- A guide developed for source or target language to determine documentation and user interface style and raise consistency.
T
- target lanaguage
- The language into which a text or document is translated.
- terminology
- 1. The collected concepts and denotations of a technical field. I.e. all the words in the vocabulary of a technical language.
2. The academic discipline related to the use, organization and classification of technical vocabulary.
- terminology extraction
- Method of obtaining terminology for storage in a glossary. Terminology extraction can be manual or automatic. Automatic terminology extraction requires sophisticated natural language processing technology.
- terminology management
- Storage, organization and standardization of terms in a system designed for this purpose (glossary, termbank, etc.)
- translation memory
- A bi-lingual or multilingual database of aligned text segments that is used for leveraging previously translated text for re-use in an update of the text or a new translation of a text in the same domain or subject field. See also: 100% match, fuzzy match, recycling and repetition
U
- unicode
- A 16-bit character encoding that contains all of the characters in common use in the world's major languages. Unicode provides an unambiguous representation of text across a range of scripts, languages and platforms.
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Last Updated:
1/2/01