Microsoft did it again, they keep amazing me. The way they handle publicity is just awesome. Every single fart hits the jackpot on the publicity scale. This time I was surprised by the fact that Microsoft is going to make a Frysk (West Frisian) translation of Office.

Fries is spoken in the nothern part of The Netherlands, especially in the province Friesland, it’s a beautiful language and the dutch people can’t really understand it.

It seems Microsoft has worked together with the Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden to work on a ‘Community Glossary’ to get a unified vocabulary for ICT terms. Which is great, because that’s often a difficulty in a small language: you don’t have a translation for all the specialised terms used in the software.

Microsoft being involved in such a commercially less attractive initiative looks to me as if they are trying to improve their image. I’m not against the initiative at all, because I wish the Frysk people all the best, especially software in Frysk – I hope it includes a spell checker, etc.

I’m just wondering why this is mentioned in the news. KDE provides Frysk for a while already and I seriously doubt it would be on any news site at all if we have made a press release. Seriously, we have to do really weird things to get it on WebWereld for example. Something like releasing KDE4 for example. I think those sites need to wake up and not copy over every single press release Microsofts Martketing Dep. comes up with.

I’ld even like it when a journalist actually did some research before publishing it. Like phone Microsoft and ask why they are the last big Office application being delivered in Frysk (assuming OOo has Frysk too). Or asking them what there involvement is exactly – for me it looks like Microsoft is only repackaging the software, but the story is very superficial. So reporters: wake up, do your job, please!

I really want to give a huge compliment to the KDE Frysk team: Rinse (also the one responsible for the dutch translation for years, and years), Berend and Douwe. I hope I did not forget anyone ;-). Nice Job!