Skip to main content

Facebook in Kriol!

Ever since I became addicted to Facebook 6 or 7 years ago, I've wanted to have the interface available in Kriol. (You can have it in French, Pirate, Upside Down English and Icelandic, but all the small languages like Kriol missed out).

Well, now you can! A very clever fellow wrote some code that lets you translate some of the most common words and phrases on the Facebook interface into whatever language you like. So I whipped up a Kriol version and hey presto - here's what my Facebook looks like now:

It's really easy and fun, and it actually does make me more inclined to write stuff in Kriol. It's available for anyone to install on their own computer and absolutely free. So, if you want to have FB in Kriol too, here's what to do:

Installing Facebook in Kriol on your computer:
So far this only works on computers where you can download and install a little file. It won't work on mobiles etc.
1. Make sure your Facebook account's language is set to "English (US)". (To check, go to the down arrow in the top right hand corner, then "Account Settings" and then "Language")

2. What Internet Browser do you use? So far, I only know how to make this work on Firefox and Google Chrome. If you don't have these browsers, then you can download them very quickly and easily. https://www.google.com/chrome.  If/when you have Google Chrome, you can go straight to Step 3.

If you use Firefox for your Internet browser, then go here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/?src=hp-dl-mostpopular and install the "add-on". Then go to Step 3.

3. Follow the link: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/126589 and click "install" in the top right hand corner. You might need to close the browser and re-open it, but basically that's all there is to it. Your FB should now have Kriol all over it!

A few other notes
  • only some parts of the Facebook interface are available for translation. A lot of bits will still be in English.
  • I did the translations myself, based on Roper Kriol (as spoken in Ngukurr), and I did them very quickly, so there might be mistakes. If you have suggestions for improvements or notice something that sounds funny, then please tell me and we can work on fixing it up.
  • Feel free to pass these instructions on to anyone who might be interested.
This was very easy to do, so if you want to do it for a language that you know, then go for it! It was developed by a guy named Kevin Scannell. He just send me a little file and some instructions. I translated a bunch of phrases, sent it back to him and that was it! His contact details are available here: http://borel.slu.edu/

Lastly, here's another example of what my new Kriol Facebook looks like. I love it!




If you have a go at doing this yourself, I'd love to hear how you go with it.

Comments

Murray said…
Greg this is fabulous. I was wondering how you translated 'friend'. Is the word 'fren' in Kriol polysemous meaning 'brother-in-law' and also covering the non-kin concept of 'friend'? This also raises questions about neologisms in Australian languages for information technology. Kevin pointed me to this blog which has some great discussion about these kind of translation issues which others might also find useful:http://www.newtactics.org/en/thread/why-language-underrepresented-online#comment-6701
Greg Dickson said…
Hi Murray,

Yes friend/fren is problematic as fren really means brother-in-law in Kriol. Kriol speakers would be aware of the English meaning but I don't think they really use it that way themselves. In my translation, I just went with "fren" or "frenmob" as I assumed any Kriol speaking users would recognise it as a Facebook "thing" and import the English semantics.

When doing this sort of thing, there are inevitably lots of funny sounding things. A language like Kriol that isn't terribly well suited to the language of headings, tables and other neatly organised concise written forms. E.g. Above Facebook Ads, it reads "sponsored", which I translated as "Ola Ad dislot iya". (Didn't know what to do with "Ad" either!).
Anonymous said…
Ad - Maitbi 'ola ting maitbi yu wandim bla baiyim';

Aibin jis pudim dijan Kriol garram main feisbuk. Im garra album mi yusum main Kriol mowa en mowa.

Gudwan dijan ting - Mowa en Mowa pipul hu tok tok Kriol brabliwei bin joinap garra feisbuk du.

Yu garram Kriol bla yusum garram 'spelling and grammar' garra wed ting (document). Ai wandim det red lain nomo kamap andanith det wed wen im Kriol wed, nomo rong spelling.

Reitj

Popular posts from this blog

A conference, language policy and Aboriginal languages in Federal Parliament

The other day, I was priveleged in attending a TESOL symposium about 'Keeping Language Diversity Alive'. One of the speakers, Joseph Lo Bianco was excellent and discussed Language Policy. He gave a handout at one of his sessions that I'm going to type out in full here, because it was a real eye-opener. It's from the Official Hansard of the Federal Parliament from a debate that happened on 10/12/98. Here's how it went: Mr SNOWDON: My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of the decision by the Northern Territory government to phase out bilingual education in Aboriginal schools? Is the Prime Minister also aware that his government funds bilingual education programs in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam? Prime Minister, given that article 26(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, will you take a direct approach to the Norther

The pitiful state of Recommendation 11.6 of the NT Fracking (Pepper) Inquiry

Today the NT Government announced that it's ok to start fracking the Beetaloo Basin, claiming that all 135 recommendations from the 2018 Pepper Inquiry report have been met and, therefore, fracking can proceed.  Most of the recommendations - and you can go through them all here:  Action items | Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northern Territory  - are outside my field of expertise as a linguist. There's a lot of regulatory stuff, things about the mining industry, stuff about land and water management that others know much more about than me.  However, as a linguist working in the Katherine Region for 20 years, there is one recommendation that sits in my wheelhouse so, after today's announcement, I wanted to take a look at it. It's Recommendation 11.6, which says: That in collaboration with the Government, Land Councils and AAPA, an independent, third-party designs and implements an information program to ensure that reliable, accessible, trusted and accurate information ab

Subtle features of Aboriginal English that I love: agreeing or confirming by copying

Linguists aren't supposed to play favourites, but I love Aboriginal English. Maybe because it's what the love of my life speaks and separating language from people and society isn't a realistic prospect. I'm lucky to regularly be around Aboriginal people speaking English in all sorts of ways and privileged to have insights into some of the more subtle ways in which Aboriginal ways of using English differ from the suburban white English I grew up speaking.  I want to share some of these more subtle features. Not just because I am fond of them but also because they seem to be features that escape the attention of most academic discussions of Aboriginal English / Aboriginal ways of using English. I'm going to skip over the complexities of what Aboriginal English is (and isn't) and also if/why that label is worth using at all (a chapter I wrote on Aboriginal English(es) dips into some of that discussion - email me if you want a copy). For brevity's sake, let