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the low spread (at the time) of the browser across Kyrgyzstan as compared
to Internet Explorer and Opera. The situation changed dramatically by 2009
when Firefox became more popular than its competitors.
By the summer of 2009, the browser was upgraded to version 3.5 which underwent
a final localization process. The basic and central distinction of version 3.5 and
later versions lies in the fact that our Firefox build has become multilingual; this
means that it allows switching between Kyrgyz and English or Russian.
All other existing localized Firefox builds were monolingual, which led to certain
difficulties: since it was impossible to use two versions in different languages
simultaneously, you had to choose in favor of an English, Russian or Kyrgyz
version. The appearance of the multilingual build offered a solution to this
dilemma, and the build itself got widely spread in the Firefox user community in
Kyrgyzstan. Today, the user may choose between two versions: typical installation
and portable editions. The Tamga-KIT software product (to be described below)
contains the Firefox 3.6 browser portable version as a mandatory item.
Localization of the OpenOffice Suite
OpenOffice is traditionally used as a basic software office suite in Linux
environment for various builds, e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. Infra-
Resource’s Russified OpenOffice version was of great help in popularizing
the suite among Windows users. After a number of technical problems with
the deployment of OpenOffice spell check and hyphenation modules for
Kyrgyz had been settled (in-house development), the Kyrgyz OpenOffice 2.4
localization for Debian OS came out in late 2007, and the Kyrgyz OpenOffice
2.4.2 localization for Windows OS, in early 2008. Today, OpenOffice version
3.2.1 is available on the Kyrgyz market. The portable version is also offered as
a supplement to the Tamga-KIT software solution.
The instrumental and term bases developed during the work on the OpenOffice
and Firefox localizations made a very prompt localization of an enormous bulk
of both free and proprietary software possible.
Background of Works on Kyrgyz Localization
Before starting work on the localization, we had to address the following
general issues:
1. Development and finalization for introduction of general standards
guiding the usage of the Kyrgyz language in ICT;
2. Development and deployment of drivers of standard keyboard layouts;
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