Ask HN: Translating Android

[sicelo]

I would like to translate Android into my native language (Swazi). I am not referring to translating the text in a specific application. Instead, I am interested in translating the core UI/system.

Additionally, I would like to improve the translation for my second language, Zulu, which exists in Android, but would do with some improvement.

Does anyone know how to go about doing that? Searching the web seems to only give me results related to app translation.

[lovelearning]

In the Android world, translations are usually found in string resources. See [1], for example.

AFAIK, if you want improved translations, 1) you'd need to either fork AOSP, build a custom ROM, and your users would need to deploy that custom ROM on their devices. or 2) convince Google to accept your changes [2].

Edit: There may be other hacky approaches I'm not aware of. You might find something useful if you trawl the XDA forums [3].

[1]: https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/blob/nou...

[2]: https://source.android.com/source/contributing

[3]: https://forum.xda-developers.com/

[sicelo]

That GitHub link was very useful! Thanks. I will see how far this gets.

[rahimnathwani]

Consider asking this question on the Android Platform mailing list.

This post seems to be relevant: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-contrib/XKqt...

[PaulHoule]

Look at the Zulu translation first to see how it is implemented.

[sicelo]

I have not been able to figure it out (or any other language translation for that matter). Or Google translates this in-house with no possibility for outside contributions?

[PaulHoule]

There has to be a file somewhere that has the translations in it.