Sharing IT terminology with local language communities

Today, we are announcing 59 Language Interface Packs (LIPs) for Windows 7, Office 2010 as well as new LIP additions for Visual Studio 2010 for the first time.

We are also announcing that we have begun to share the contents of the Microsoft Terminology database as a whole, making it available through collaborative efforts with governments, multilingual terminology databases and language preservation projects. The Microsoft Language Portal already provides an online search for defined terminology in close to 100 languages which allows local language communities to discover, share, and develop IT terminology in their native language.

Late last year, we launched this effort by partnering with the EuroTermBank consortium to include Baltic IT terminology in the EuroTermBank terminology database and have since partnered with EuroTermBank to add a number of other European languages. The aim is to provide translators, terminologists, students and IT professionals access to established terminology as part of their everyday work. 

We are currently partnering with other terminology database providers to federate the Microsoft terminology collection into other terminology databases and are seeking other partnerships with governments and language preservation projects.

By sharing the terminology resources, we aim to ensure the broader use of new IT terminology in the smaller languages where spread and acceptance of localized IT terms is still in progress.