Good Work Microsoft

$53 billion in the bank, fighting with the US Department of Justice, fighting with the European Union; Microsoft is used to playing big games with the big players. But Microsoft does do some good things for the little people. Their charitable foundation gives away millions every year in computers, software and other products and services to schools and those technologically challenged individuals that they can help. Now the big Microsoft machine is going to make its products in the Inuktitut language of the Eastern Arctic Inuit.

Nunavut, home to the Inuit, played host to some Microsoft representatives who were up taking a look at how they can make their product for the aboriginal language. Creating software in Inuktitut is going to be an extreme challenge for developers. Inuktitut is a language that is made up of symbols and consonants. It also doens't have words for many technical terms used in the computing world. The task for software engineers is to find words and concepts in the Inuit language that is applicable to computers. Concepts such as e-mail, shutdown, networking don't exist. Computers are a new idea to many Inuit; their culture has been passed down with storytelling, drum dancing and their skills consisted of hunting and fishing. “It is very important to us to make sure the composition of the words is acceptable to the community,” said Mina Gharbi-Hamel, Windows international programme manager to Microsoft Canada. The development of product will represent a substantial boost for a language, which like other ancient and native tongues is suffering from the global onslaught of English.

Microsoft says they are developing a so-called language interface pack, to be available as a free download. That means menus will drop down with Inuktitut commands. Applications from e-mail to databases will be available in Inuktitut. Inuktitut speakers will be able to use Windows and all its features in their own language. This is a good public relations coup for Microsoft. If this works out then this is something that they should be looking at for other aboriginal languages. Good Job Microsoft. If you would like to leave a comment please visit EclecticBlogs