Twenty Thirteen: Transliterating "WordPress"

[alex-ye]

In the Twenty Thirteen theme, footer.php line 20.. You should add the ability to transliterate the "WordPress" word, it make sense so the people who doesn't know English can read it by their own languages.

[markoheijnen]

WordPress isn't a word but a brand name and because of that it shouldn't be translated.

[SergeyBiryukov]

I agree with Marko.

"WordPress" was translatable at some point in Twenty Ten ([13024]), but looks like that was intentionally changed in [14433]. Since then, we don't offer it for translation in newer bundled themes.

[alex-ye]

Replying to markoheijnen:

WordPress isn't a word but a brand name and because of that it shouldn't be translated.

The "WordPress" brand name can be translated in many positions, see:
​http://tinyurl.com/o2sweme

Translate it or not, it's something the translator should decide it, after all it will be different if we talk about an image logo or something similar.

Google,Facebook,Twitter..etc using the English name in their logo, but they use the localized name in their websites texts.

[markoheijnen]

All those strings have words that need to be translated. My opinion is that translating WordPress to something different is kind of stupid. You create confusion to users on what they are using. So I'm not sure if a translator should decide it.

[alex-ye]

Replying to markoheijnen:

You create confusion to users on what they are using. So I'm not sure if a translator should decide it.

Mark, Is it make sense to you when I write my name as "نشوان دعقان" ?!

[alex-ye]

Translating the brand names it not something stupid. It help to read,remember,write it easily :)

[alex-ye]

To make sure you understand me.. What I mean by "Transalting" here it's not write the meaning of the "WordPress" in our language.. I mean writing the name in our language characters so the pronunciation will be the same.

[markoheijnen]

I got that later on. I have no clue how they do it in Cyrillic. I would guess we use it on multiple places so still mix on what to do.

[alex-ye]

I have done a small research about this topic, They called this process "Transliteration" see:
​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration
​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic

and you can find many articles about that and how we use it in the brand names:
​http://www.languageonthemove.com/recent-posts/transliterated-brand-names

I don't know about how other languages do this.. but in the Arabic language it's something popular and all the brand names like "Microsoft", "Galaxy", "Google", "Facebook", "Mcdonalds" ...etc do it in their texts and ADs.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to markoheijnen:

I have no clue how they do it in Cyrillic.

I guess it depends on the language.

As for Russian, WordPress is sometimes written as "ВордПресс" on support forums or various sites, but the package on ​http://ru.wordpress.org always uses the name in English, it looks cleaner that way.

Bulgarian package appears to follow the same pattern: ​http://bg.wordpress.org/.

In Serbian, however, looks like they translate it to "Вордпрес": ​http://sr.wordpress.org.

[nofearinc]

Replying to SergeyBiryukov:

As for Russian, WordPress is sometimes written as "ВордПресс" on support forums or various sites, but the package on ​http://ru.wordpress.org always uses the name in English, it looks cleaner that way.

Bulgarian package appears to follow the same pattern: ​http://bg.wordpress.org/.

In Serbian, however, looks like they translate it to "Вордпрес": ​http://sr.wordpress.org.

Macedonian also uses the original name - ​http://mk.wordpress.org/ . I was surprised that the Serbian version actually relies on "Вордпрес" - it seems to me like it should be fixed on the Serbian version, but Alex's point above for Arabic (and maybe Greek, Chinese etc) could probably have a point, not sure.

[alex-ye]

Languages are complex. so as developers we shouldn't make a strict rules about the translation and because of that I said "Let the translator decide it".

We should trust in our global teams that they will choose the proper way for their local communities, Again the transliterated names make a good feeling that the company respect the language and the local culture.

It's also a good marketing and SEO strategy, to make your brand name more popular :)
​http://support.google.com/customsearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2633352
​http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022127.html

You can search about "ووردبريس" in Google and see what you will find, most if not all the Arabic websites write "WordPress" as "ووردبريس" and this is not something wrong!

In another topic we use the same strategy for many WP Plugins like "bbPress", "BuddyPress", "Akismet"...etc

[rasheed]

There are about 1,050,000 results that contain the word "ووردبريس" (in english: WordPress)

​https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=%D9%88%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B3&oq=%D9%88%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B3&gs_l=hp.3..0l3.2107.3456.0.3535.8.5.0.3.3.0.160.690.0j5.5.0....0...1c.1.22.psy-ab..0.8.681.rqJ7zcxIRMM&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.49784469,d.bGE&fp=5dfc46f8e97328f5&biw=1440&bih=750

Also in Hebrew WordPress is translated to וורדפרס

Also in Google official sites I see جوجل (in English: Google) in many places.

May be that not all Arabic speakers have English letters on the keyboard. This is another thing to consider.

It is important to emphasize that we do not translate the word into something different. The word is still pronounced the same. The change is only in letters.

The same thing with Facebook (in Arabic: فيس بوك). (Screenshot from Google: ​http://i.imgur.com/bpmIc8x.gif)

[alex-ye]

If all agreed, Can this be in 3.6 milestone?

[SergeyBiryukov]

I'll leave the final decision to nacin and lancewillett.

[lancewillett]

If the word isn't translated all throughout core files, why would we do it in the default theme only?

[nacin]

This is too late a change for 3.6. If there is a consensus we can do it consistently (everywhere) in 3.7.

[kovshenin]

Please don't translate WordPress, it's even worse than a lower case P, dangit :(

Also translation and transliteration are different things, and (someone mentioned above) ВордПресс (yuck!!!) is not a translation, but rather a transliteration, i.e. the same word, but in Cyrillic. If that was translated, it'd look something like СловоНажатие (wich literally means "a word" and "to press") or some other silly thing. So my vote is *no* for transliteration, and bigger *no* for translation.

[toscho]

It is transliterated in other contexts, so it has to be available for that here too. Not everyone can read Latin characters.

[alex-ye]

Replying to lancewillett:

If the word isn't translated all throughout core files

I know only tow places where 'WordPress' name can't be translated:

• $from_name local variable in the wp_mail() function.
• In the default themes footer.

[alex-ye]

Replying to kovshenin:

Please don't translate WordPress, it's even worse than a lower case P, dangit :(

Also translation and transliteration are different things, and (someone mentioned above) ВордПресс (yuck!!!) is not a translation, but rather a transliteration, i.e. the same word, but in Cyrillic. If that was translated, it'd look something like СловоНажатие (wich literally means "a word" and "to press") or some other silly thing. So my vote is *no* for transliteration, and bigger *no* for translation.

Maybe it's "yuck" thing in the Latin languages, but It make sense for languages like Arabic,Chinese...etc ,

Please try to see the whole image :)

[kovshenin]

I do see the whole picture, and it's horrible, sorry :) And since you mentioned Google, I have never seen Google transliterate "Google", "YouTube", "Gmail", etc: ​http://cl.ly/image/1n3d3C0H2f1p

[alex-ye]

@kovshenin maybe you didn't get the point, WordPress is an open source project, everyone install it in their own websites and everyone shall have the ability to customize it at he want. If you see that the transliterate of "WordPress" is horrible, just don't do it in your language no one has force you.

If you want an examples about how other companies do this, the day will never end :)

So be obvious and explain Why you think that it's horrible?!

[kovshenin]

You can not "not do it in your language" if it's transliterated in your language files. Normal people don't dive into .po/mo editing, so the choice is up to the translators groups, not the user. I think it's horrible because it just looks and feels so wrong. I cry when I see ВордПресс, really, I do. We have enough problems with fauxgos and lowercase Ps. Also, if people can't read the latin alphabet, WordPress is the least of their problems.

[JustinSainton]

@kovshenin's argument made in comment 24 is compelling enough to mark this as wontfix, IMHO. It's true, as a branding mechanism, you almost never see trademarked brand names transliterated or translated. And when you do, it almost always ends up as a meme or Tumblr site.

[lancewillett]

I vote for wontfix.

[markoheijnen]

I'm more then happy to write a wordpress_dangit() function for GlotPress ;) But without kidding I can see your point Alex that everyone should de able to customize what he want.

But except this isn't the case. This impact a lot of users. I think this is something that need to be discussed on Polyglots to see if we should allow this.

[knutsp]

I vote for letting translators decide if "WordPress" should be transliterated or not in bundled themes. The fact that someone doesn't like it when it's done, doesn't matter. Say that to translators of languages you know. And WordPress is open source, so comparison with other international trademarks should not be very relevant.

Anyone may completely change the appearance through (child) themes so why make it more difficult than necessary?

But this should be done consistently for all bundled themes in 3.7 or later.

[alex-ye]

Replying to JustinSainton:

you almost never see trademarked brand names transliterated or translated. And when you do, it almost always ends up as a meme or Tumblr site.

This screenshots form Mozilla Firefox, Facebook, Twitter
​http://postimg.org/image/5tqttxc7b/
​http://postimg.org/image/4fz6ymcxz/
​http://postimg.org/image/5wapgrfuv/

I can give you more, not only form some websites even in our city streets :)

[alex-ye]

Replying to knutsp:

Anyone may completely change the appearance through (child) themes so why make it more difficult than necessary?

+100000000

[alex-ye]

Replying to markoheijnen:

But except this isn't the case. This impact a lot of users. I think this is something that need to be discussed on Polyglots to see if we should allow this.

1+

[DrewAPicture]

It's worth noting that in all three cases mentioned in comment:31 above, the transliterated brand name is accompanied on the page by a universal logo, logotype, or both.

[alex-ye]

Replying to DrewAPicture:

the transliterated brand name is accompanied on the page by a universal logo, logotype, or both.

Yes!, most companies doesn't use transliterated logo, but they use the transliterated brand name in the page content, and this is what I ask for :)

We all love the WordPress logo, and it would not make sense to transliterate it, the purpose of this ticket is to be able to use the transliterated name in the page content like credits text in the footer.

[DrewAPicture]

Replying to alex-ye:

Replying to DrewAPicture:

the transliterated brand name is accompanied on the page by a universal logo, logotype, or both.

Yes!, most companies doesn't use transliterated logo, but they use the transliterated brand name in the page content, and this is what I ask for :)

We all love the WordPress logo, and it would not make sense to transliterate it, the purpose of this ticket is to be able to use the transliterated name in the page content like credits text in the footer.

Right, but the point is that we're not displaying the WordPress logo or logotype in any fashion here. It's text.

I'd be willing to bet that if those companies didn't have accompanying logos/logotypes with their transliterated brands, they wouldn't transliterate them.

The 'WordPress' in 'Proudly powered by WordPress' is the only representation of the trademark anywhere visible. And I think it's important to keep it.

[alex-ye]

Replying to DrewAPicture:

I'd be willing to bet that if those companies didn't have accompanying logos/logotypes with their transliterated brands, they wouldn't transliterate them.

I don't know about that :)

The 'WordPress' in 'Proudly powered by WordPress' is the only representation of the trademark anywhere visible. And I think it's important to keep it.

As I know WordPress isn't that type of apps which force you to show the trademark! We have the generator meta and it always displayed in English. adding the ability to transliterate "WordPress" not mean it will be transliterate by all!

@knutsp has said it:
"Anyone may completely change the appearance through (child) themes so why make it more difficult than necessary?"

[rasheed]

If the expression of the word remains the same so what's the problem?
We do not change the logo.
How will people realize it is WordPress if they do not read English letters?
We can not force people to learn English.
Besides, it is not wise to change what has already been applied since 10 years.

[knutsp]

Replying to DrewAPicture:

The 'WordPress' in 'Proudly powered by WordPress' is the only representation of the trademark anywhere visible. And I think it's important to keep it.

Then you should suggest core adds this to the footer.

A lead translator may feel a transliterated "WordPress" better represents the trade mark than "WordPress" in latin alphabet. If an advanced user thinks it should be transliterated he may create a simple child theme with a slightly changed footer.php. Then we could see misrepresentations and confusion. Translators generally know what they are doing. Trust them with this decision, please.

[alex-ye]

So what is the final decision here? Can we put this in 3.7 ?

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to rasheed:

How will people realize it is WordPress if they do not read English letters?
We can not force people to learn English.
Besides, it is not wise to change what has already been applied since 10 years.

It's not a recent change, "WordPress" was not translatable in Kubrick either (and any other bundled theme since then):
​http://themes.trac.wordpress.org/browser/default/1.7.2/footer.php#L12

[lancewillett]

Final decision is to close as wontfix.