Strange Pants brought to my attention the Firefox Fijian language addon made available by AvonSys, and it’s proving to be an interesting development in the field of native language interactive media. As it stands, most fijian language websites are usually about the study of the actual language itself. Television already has a few shows in fijian, but compared to the internet, tv has been around for abit longer.

Since software releases of any kind must be vigorously tested before, during and after its release to the wild, I’m going to be doing my part in giving the Fijian language addon a lap or two around the barracks ground. Because my fijian isn’t in any shape to give a run through with anything thats fijian and written, I’ve arranged to have some of my other friends and family who are in a better vernacular shape then me to have a go at the language pack.

First up, my trusty but sly workmate, Marika. Technically, Marika doesn’t know that he is been used as a lab rat to test run the new firefox language pack, but I promise to show him the post and give him his 2 minutes of fame when this trial run is published. Here’s an apology in advance to you mate >< Bullet points of interest to follow:

• Before we could even start the review process, Marika had to update his Firefox. “What? Why?” He shrugs. “Everytime thing pop up to update, I just quise it and close it.” A short break while we wait for the updated version to download and install, with much impaitent foot tapping and furvative glances at the progress bar.

• Set. With Firefox now up to date, we eagerly download the language pack, run the installation process – and immediately run into a wall of complex instructions. Ok, to be honest, as a person who likes to think of himself as sorta web savy, it wasn’t that complex. Just…well note for any interested parties: Save time and reading concentration energy. Use Locale Switcher to switch between English and Fijian.

• /Cheer! Behold Firefox in all its majastic, somewhat jarring mix of english and fijian, menu localised glory! First disappointment – websites weren’t rendered in Fijian. Awwww. Of course, Marika was expecting his whole operating system to be in Fijian, so in comparison my disappointment wasn’t that bad.

• Oookaaayyy, lets see now. The first item on the menu bar…Nomu File. Sounds about right. Though to be honest, Fiji needs to come up with more fijian versions of english words, since nomu ‘file’ just won’t cut it. Of course, that’s another topic for another Professor Local Language Convention meeting. For now, the mix of fijian and english in written form was strangely…jarring. We ended up playing a minigame of figuring out which menu was what in its new (disguised) Fijian form, by reading it out aloud and relating it to what we knew as the english version. For example, “Na veisau”, translated literally, means “Change”. What’s there to change? Or maybe…to edit! Yep, we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves =_=

• My favourite fijian switcheroo is “Na MakaniVola”, which lends itself quite well in terms of literal translation: the mark in the book, or Bookmark.
• After stumbling around the menu items, there was a pause then, “Ok…set.” I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “Huh?” “I…gonna switch back to english.” Shock! Horror! “Boy…I’m not used to working in fijian, let alone reading fijian. I dunno boy, thing will uhh take some getting used to.” Hmm. Fair enough point. “Set. But – like how do you like this?” “Woo boy thing set boy. Heavy that they got a Firefox in fijian. Like, from here, us gang can start making more computer stuff with fijian in it.” He slowly and deliberately switched the language from Fijian back to English. “Its good. I will use come back later and try using it again. Thing will take some time to get used to, because first time to have a fijian program, and to use it for work. It’ll take some time. But set.”

Sounds good enough for me.

Next up, the more challenging field test Part 2. My sorta computer literate uncle.