Kilinux
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Kilinux (klnX), the Open Swahili Localization Project, is a project by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), and IT+46<ref name="pressrelease">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> for localizing major applications to the Swahili language.
It is based in Tanzania and run on Linux, and aims to create an operating system in Swahili, which is spoken by an estimated 100 million people. The project was started as a joint effort between the University of Dar es Salaam and Swedish company IT +46.
BackgroundEdit
Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by about 100 million people in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique and other areas in or near the African Great Lakes region.<ref name="BBC" /> Most users are using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, but since that is not available in Swahili,<ref name="ZDNET">Template:Cite news</ref> they have to use English or French.<ref name="BBC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kilinux tried to reduce the threshold by localizing Open Office.<ref name="pambazuka">Template:Cite journal</ref> In June 2004 Microsoft announced a Swahili version of Windows.<ref name="BBC eng">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
Template:Quote box The Kilinux project began in 2003 with the development of a glossary and a spell checker for OpenOffice.org.<ref name="pambazuka" />
The Kilinux Project received an award in May 2006 as the best ICT project in the category education of the 2006 Stockholm challenge.<ref name="award">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Swahili IT GlossaryEdit
In October 2004 Kilinux released a Swahili IT Glossary<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> under the Creative Commons ShareAlike license containing over 1500 "computer related terms in English and their Swahili equivalents",<ref name="pressrelease" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> because the Swahili language did not contain any computer terminology.<ref name="ZDNET" />
Jambo OpenOfficeEdit
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The first major release by the project — Jambo OpenOffice (Hello OpenOffice<ref name="BBC"/>) — was a localised version of OpenOffice.org, an open source office suite, and was aimed primarily at schools and colleges.
Jambo FirefoxEdit
On 15 June 2006 the project announced they had localised the web browser Mozilla Firefox.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>