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Language use in software

Abstract
Many of the popular software we use today are in English. Very few software applications are available in minority languages. Besides economic goals, we justify why software should be made available to smaller cultures. Furthermore, there is evidence that people learn and progress faster in software in their mother tongue (Griffiths et at, 1994) (Krock, 1996). We hypothesise that experienced users of English spreadsheet can easily migrate to a spreadsheet in their native tongue i.e. Bahasa Melayu (Malaysia’s national language). Observations made in the study suggest that the native speakers of Bahasa Melayu had difficulties with the Bahasa Melayu interface. The subjects’ main difficulty was their unfamiliarity with computing terminology in Bahasa Melayu. We present possible strategies to increase the use of Bahasa Melayu in IT. These strategies may also be used to promote the use of other minority languages in IT.
Type
Working Paper
Type of thesis
Series
Computer Science Working Papers
Citation
Yeo, A. & Barbour, R. (1997). Language use in software. (Working paper 97/20). Hamilton, New Zealand: University of Waikato, Department of Computer Science.
Date
1997-07
Publisher
Degree
Supervisors
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