Language

Roolite.org

There are four issues here.

• How to pronounce "Oolite"
• Non-English languages and the associated difficulties of learning the game
• Languages in the Ooniverse
• Programming Languages

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Non English languages

There are at least two problems.

• Non-English Keyboards
• Learning to play Oolite

Oolite en Français

• Poovga's translation (2013) for v.1.77
• Keyconfig.plist for French (Gracieuseté du Monsieur le Commandant STyx, 2020).

Old German site

Oolite auf Deutsch

Website seems to have died since 2012...

• SwissMäc's's translation (2009) for v.1.71.1
• Commander McLane's translation (2010) for v.1.74
• Keyconfig.plist for German QWERTZ Linux keyboard (Mit reichlichem Gruß an Kommandant Freiherr von Tsoj, 2021).
• Keyconfig.plist for German QWERTZ Linux keyboard (Genugtuung an den wundersamen und illustren Kommandanten Slartibartfast). This might work for Windows, too.

Oolite Italiano

• Another_Commander's translation (2013) for v.1.77
• BB Thread (2008-13)

Оолит по-русски

• Website (mostly 2012): search for " Roolite.org " This is the best (and currently only) language site, a partial duplicate of this one, dated, but with a current forum/bulletin board and with Russian translations of old version OXPs such as PlanetFall.
• There are 2 OXPs - by CatSam (2009) and by RadCapricorn (2009). Roolite states that CatSam did a better job (words don't creep over each other).

RadCapricorn's translation & BB thread

CatSam's translation

• Oolite introduction in Russian (С обильным и обильным удовлетворением Командира Незнакомца, 2020)
• Mr Gimlet in Russian (by Stranger, 2020)
• Roolite Our BB Thread in English (2010-11)

Oolite en español

• Keyconfig.plist for Latin American (Gracias al Supremo, Serendipitoso y Sereno El Señor Comandante Reval).
• Traducción del juego Oolite al castellano (GitHub) by ManuelAMS (2016, unfinished?)

Language packs: a thought

From the Roolite website

First of all, I want to say that I am not a supporter of translating both the game itself and the oxp's into Russian. Firstly, a localized product always looks flawed, both in content (the naturalness of the textual part laid down by the authors is lost) and in appearance (typography conceived for the Latin alphabet in the Cyrillic version suffers greatly). Secondly, it is simply unrealistic to process the entire amount of information with high quality and the game will constantly sin of bilingualism. Third, translations often create confusion in terminology. English names are more succinct and concise. For example, "radioactives" could be translated literally as "radioactive", but the trouble is that such a word has not yet been invented in Russian and there is no reason to invent it yet. Therefore, the translator needs to write something like "radioactive materials". This something does not fit into the geometry invented by the developers. Although, of course, there is always an alternative to indicate simply "uranium" or "plutonium", but all this will only cause controversy and completely unnecessary discrepancies, as mentioned above. Fourth, the amount of useful information is, after all, less than the general amount of information. Therefore, it seems to me that it makes sense to work with the translation of the documentation, not the interface. For example, on this site, materials translated word by word from an English-language source are not posted, but instead concise, summarized articles about the main thing, with verified content, linking to more complete publications (full of both technical points and all kinds of lyrics).

(Roolite)

Links

• Keyboard Issues

• Discussion on German terminology for Oolite (2008)

• Popularising Oolite in Different Languages (2020)
• Non-English Keyboard Problems (2021)

• BB Thread on the translated Oolite game packages (2009)
• BB Thread: Multilingual Oolite (2008)

Old versions of Oolite for the translation packages above

• 2012 version: v.1.77.1 see bottom of page
• 2008-9 versions

Note that these older versions predate Cim's groundbreaking v.1.80 and that the play will be slightly different

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Languages in the Ooniverse

• The peculiarities of Thargoid language may be due to faults in the translation.

In terms of keeping things Cannon I’ve handwaved the fact that the GalCop translator clearly cannot translate insectoid communications correctly. This is why Thargoid transmissions appear as meaningless English words such as “Eat Parking Meters” on your coms display. Insect languages use wing positions, movement and pheromones as well as sounds which cannot be translated into text. Your onboard translator therefore translates the names of friendly insect members of the GalCop Union of Worlds into the nearest Ancient Earthian Latin meaning. Latin is chosen as this is a common known language of all human colonials regardless of local dialect for reasons lost in pre-history.

(LittleBear)

• If you are curious about the radio chatter in the orbital station's aegis (from BGS.oxp) see here.

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Programming Languages

There is the language of the code of the Vanilla game, and then there are the languages of the OXPs.

For the Vanilla game code languages see the bottom-right corner

For OXP languages see Category:Oolite JavaScript Reference for newer OXPs & Legacy Scripting for older OXPs