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Do languages with few speakers localize into their native language?
Thread poster: Zolboo Batbold
Zolboo Batbold
Zolboo Batbold  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 11:23
Member (2021)
English to Mongolian
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SITE LOCALIZER
Nov 30, 2021

Do languages with few speakers localize into their native language? Like those languages with less than 10 million speakers. Do they localize things like videogames, movies, cartoons as a strategy to "protect" its language and culture from dominant langauges like English etc..
 
Adieu
Adieu  Identity Verified
Ukrainian to English
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Subtitles Nov 30, 2021

A lot of smaller markets do subtitles.

There's also a budget localization approach of single-voice (or 1 male 1 female) voiceover, games with translated interfaces but subtitled sounds, etc.
 
Mr. Satan (X)
Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
Catalan and Frisian Dec 1, 2021

There are several Catalan localization services out there. KDE also has a team to localize their software into the Frisian language. I'd imagine the same goes for other languages with small numbers of speakers.

[Edited at 2021-12-01 01:07 GMT]

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
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Languages with few speakers Dec 1, 2021

9.9 million speakers is just a few?!

But the answer is, of course, yes. Welsh has half a million and its own TV channel. But obviously English is dominant.

Emanuele Vacca
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 
Mr. Satan (X)
Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
... Dec 1, 2021

Ice Scream wrote:

But the answer is, of course, yes. Welsh has half a million and its own TV channel. But obviously English is dominant.


I presume Scotland and Northern Ireland also have something similar?
 
Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 12:23
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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Depends on the money they can spend Dec 1, 2021

All Nordic languages do subtitles in movies and tv. We in Finland have the choice between Finnish and Swedish subtitles on tv, in movie theaters we have both. I have never watched Estonian tv or been in a movie theater, but I guess they have subtitles too, at least I hope so. In Russia though probably foreign language movies have only an additional voice over, at least that used to be the norm. Germans, French, Italiansa etc. dubb the films, so they don't have to learn to read... See more
All Nordic languages do subtitles in movies and tv. We in Finland have the choice between Finnish and Swedish subtitles on tv, in movie theaters we have both. I have never watched Estonian tv or been in a movie theater, but I guess they have subtitles too, at least I hope so. In Russia though probably foreign language movies have only an additional voice over, at least that used to be the norm. Germans, French, Italiansa etc. dubb the films, so they don't have to learn to read ▲ Collapse
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Tom? Dec 1, 2021

Novian Cahyadi wrote:

Ice Scream wrote:

But the answer is, of course, yes. Welsh has half a million and its own TV channel. But obviously English is dominant.


I presume Scotland and Northern Ireland also have something similar?

Tom will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Northern Ireland has any large Gaelic-speaking communities??

Yes, there is a Scots Gaelic channel.
 
Adieu
Adieu  Identity Verified
Ukrainian to English
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Yes and no Dec 1, 2021

Single voiceovers were the Russian norm in the bootleg VHS or DVD days when translation was mostly handled by pirate studios

Heinrich Pesch wrote:

All Nordic languages do subtitles in movies and tv. We in Finland have the choice between Finnish and Swedish subtitles on tv, in movie theaters we have both. I have never watched Estonian tv or been in a movie theater, but I guess they have subtitles too, at least I hope so. In Russia though probably foreign language movies have only an additional voice over, at least that used to be the norm. Germans, French, Italiansa etc. dubb the films, so they don't have to learn to read


 


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Do languages with few speakers localize into their native language?






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