GILT: g11n, i18n, l10n, t9n

Sunny greetings, dear readers!

I am happy that you found your way to our blog, and you might wonder what GILT means in our blog name, GILT Ninjas. GILT stands for Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, and Translation. Keep on reading if you are not familiar with those concepts.

First things first. In the post header, I listed the initialisms of globalization (g11n), internationalization (i18n), localization (l10n), and translation (t9n). What you do is you keep the first and last letter and replace the number of the letters in between with the count.

Let’s start with the term Translation. In translation a written message is converted from one language to another. (Side note: Some confuse translation with Interpreting, but the latter is different, as it is the oral form of translation. I, for sure, admire interpreters; they must have a brain that is wired differently than mine.)

Translation example

English: The flower is pretty.
German: Die Blume ist schön.

The English text was converted to German with the very same meaning and message.

What about Localization? In localization, a product or service is made more suitable for a specific market. This is an extra step in addition to translating a text. Each culture has its own quirks, starting with simple things that may be shared among some cultures. For instance, think of different time and date formats.

Localization example

English: The party will be held on 08/07/2024 at 4pm.
German: Die Party ist am 07.08.2024 um 16 Uhr.

What just happened? The date and time look different now. In German, first the day of the week is mentioned, followed by the month and then the year. But wait, how does the translator know when reading the English whether it is British or American English? Does it make a difference? Only with additional information (called context) it is possible to know what English flavor it is, and yes, it makes a difference.

In British English, the date is written day/month/year and in American English, we see the format month/day/year. When localizing the given message, the translator needs to know if it is August 7th or July 8th (if we don’t want the Germans knocking on the host’s door a month early or missing the party entirely). And there are so many more English flavors! But let’s get back to the topic.

For this example, we assume that the translator has been given the information that the English is indeed American English, so the party is happening on August 7th. Notice the different separators: in American English, slashes are used, while in German, we see periods. Check out the time format! In the US, the most commonly used time format is A.M and P.M. and sometimes there is a mention of military time, which is the 24-hour time that is used in Germany.

In our localization example, the English text was translated and localized to use the date and time formats that the German audience can read and interpret correctly, ensuring their understanding.

On to the next term. Internationalization means building and creating products and content with the global audience in mind. If this is done correctly, a product can be easily adapted to the needs of another market. This involves everything that is seen and used by the target audience. For instance, an image with text. The text within the image might need to be translated, and the space within the image has to be sufficient to uphold a translation that might be much longer than the original text. Or think of an image that is an icon. Some icons need to be changed for specific markets. For example, the post horn, which is used in many countries as a logo of national post services but is not commonly recognized everywhere.

Internationalization spans from writing code to designing products and webpages to writing documentation – it means for the involved teams: all hands on deck!

The last term is Globalization. It means going global with your products and services to connect with an audience around the world. This can mean conquering just one other country or an entire continent. Globalization involves bringing a company’s business to new locales.