Presented at the 2013 Statistical Information System Collaboration Community Workshop at the OECD in Paris, France.

1. Moving from an organisation specific to a
globally localised solution
by Jonathan Challener, OECD

2. The importance of localisation
“While English has become the lingua franca of the international
business world, there are over 6,909 languages used in the
world. Huge populations are deprived of the full benefit of
computing if the devices do not support their preferred
languages. Without technology’s help, there is a danger that
these languages could become extinct. When a language dies,
the rich cultural heritage of a segment of the world population
disappears. Hence, localisation is important.”
Lewis, M Paul (ed.), 2009, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth
edition, Dallas, Texas.

3. Internationalisation is the process of designing a software
application so that it can be adapted to various languages and
regions without engineering changes. Thus, supporting
localisation more easily.
First consider internationalisation (i18n)

4. i18n
Goals
Packaging of the strings used in the software so that the
corresponding strings from a user’s language can be
deployed without impacting the functionality of the
application.
The application presents information and/or processes
as per the expectations of the target users.

5. What is localisation (l10n)?
Localisation is the process of adapting internationalised
software for a specific region or language by adding
locale-specific components and translating text.
ecd

6. • Dedicated translation database
• Externalise remaining strings into database
• Create custom database providers and configure with Web.config
• Refactor DB architecture to handle only the default language
• Dedicated service to handle default language to target language
• Translation web module
• JavaScript localisation plugin
• Centralised cache service
• Use dedicated tools
How to support it?

7. DataModel to localise a large data-oriented application
Item
• Key: identity
• Namespace: varchar(1000)
• Name: varchar(100)
Label
• Key: identity
• Value: varchar(1000)
0..N
1..1
0..N
Language
• Key: identity
• Label: varchar(100)
• ISOTwoLetterCode: char(2)
1..1

8. The same language said differently

9. l10n
Responsibilities of target organisation:
• Translating the menu strings and application messages
to the users’ desired language as it requires a good
knowledge of the target language, and a style guide for
translation.
• Documentation localisation as a good command of the
language and translation skills is also needed.

10. The continuous workflow to globalisation
source: laT_vicky CC-BY 3.0 Unported

12. Jonathan Challener, OECD
jonathan.challener@oecd.org
@Challener
OECD’s Statistical Information System Collaboration Community Workshop
April 2013, Paris France