Choice of Terms

I've been participating in a lot of conversations with Tagalog speakers about what to localize and what not to.

One camp says to keep words that speakers are "comfortable" with, such as file, user, access, etc. OK. But, some of these words exist in some form in the Tagalog language or can be coined. For example, from the root gamit "use/usage", one can derived Tagagamit. In fact I've seen this used on the Tagalog version of Google.

If the term is kept, however, the problem is which spelling to use. Keep the English spelling, or tranliterate the word into a phonetically Tagalog version? For example, using "access" above, it was pointed out that Tagalog speakers tend to get confused with the readings of letters like C which has a different reading depending on context or word (it all depends on your point of view regarding English orthography). So, access, might be akses and block, blok. Also, because of Spanish influence, or because Tagalog tends toward a CV(C) syllabic typology, the phonetic combination of /#sk_/ is not tolerated, so English words that begin with this troublesome sequence is preceded with a epenthetic /#i_/ i- or e-, e.g. "screen" could be either eskrin or iskrin, both I would imagine would be pronounced /is.kri:n/.

So, I've decided to try to keep the translation as Tagalog as possible. The only foreign words are those that have been assimilated early enough that they have a Tagalog spelling. These words are primarily those words that came into the language via other languages other than English, such as Hokkien Chinese (susi), Arabic (alak), Sanskrit (basa) or Spanish (sertipiko) or earlier English borrowings.

I still have to take a look at the translations, though before I let anyone else take a look. First of all, because of the syntax and diction used. Second, the terms used for translating the original English term.

Some of the terms that I'm having problems with are the following:

• Encrypt/Encryption
• Cipher
• Encode/Decode
• Object
• Entity
• Configure/Configuration
• Profile
• Parameter
• Argument
• Method
• Mode
• String
• Setting(s)
  

It's a very short list, but strings containing these terms are numerous. And, it's just off the top of my head.

I'll take a look at the translations and run them by friends and family. I think that some of the terms might as well remain in English, but with the spelling kept.