Wanted: Second Life In Arabic

There's still no Arabic language text option in Second Life, but for reasons far too numerous to mention, making SL more inviting to the Arab world is an intrinsically good idea, and fits well within the Lindens' mission statement, “To connect everyone to an online world that improves the human condition.”  That in mind, here's a JIRA survey to petition the Lindens for adding it, launched by Spider Mycron.

News of this comes from Schmilsson Nilsson of Dispatches from the Imagination Age, who points out some of the technical challenges for implementing Arabic.  He also points to this Arab language Second Life site which looks to be based in Egypt, though I'm not clear of its provenance.

Comments

[Laetizia Coronet]

That site seems linked to the virtual hajj I pointed out to you some weeks ago, Hamlet. A lot of the screenshots are taken there and if I am not mistaken, the Arabic script on the SL logo bottom right reads "Al-hajj al-iftiradiy hawla al-'alim", but my Arabic is very rusty. My best guess is "Virtual Hajj Around The World".

[Nadine Nozaki]

I personally don't like a localized SL interface. Why, because the groups that got that tend to used there native language and isolate them self from the rest of us.

And yes my native language isn't English, and you might see on my strange use of the language. I'm a Swedish native, and even without the Swedish localized interface many Swedes gather is small groups excluding many of my good friends not being happy enough to talk swedish. And i can hardly follow chat in german, french, japanse, spannish I might be able to make my self uynderstood in IM's not not be able to talk.

[eggy lippmann]

They can't add arabic because the Bush government would accuse them of supporting terrorism :)

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Oh, joy. LL has constrained what one can do in SL because of the law in European countries. If there's a presence in Saudi Arabia, will I be able to drive a car in SL, or required to conform to hijab?