A Look at Firefox’s Localization Growth Over Time
July 13th, 2009 by seth bindernagel
Mozilla Firefox’s localization count has grown each and every release over the years. I created the following to show just how much we’ve grown from launch to launch.
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# |
Firefox 1 |
-> |
FF 1.5 |
-> |
FF 2 |
-> |
FF 3 |
-> |
FF 3.5 |
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75 |
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Languages added |
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27 |
af |
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74 |
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Growth |
56.25% |
ar |
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73 |
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as |
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72 |
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be |
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71 |
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bg |
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70 |
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bn-BD |
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69 |
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bn-IN |
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68 |
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ca |
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67 |
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cs |
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66 |
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cy |
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65 |
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da |
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64 |
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de |
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63 |
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el |
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62 |
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en-GB |
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61 |
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en-US |
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60 |
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eo |
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59 |
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es-AR |
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58 |
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es-ES |
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57 |
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es-MX |
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56 |
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et |
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55 |
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eu |
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54 |
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fa |
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53 |
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fi |
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52 |
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fr |
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51 |
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fy-NL |
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50 |
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ga-IE |
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49 |
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gl |
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48 |
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Languages added |
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11 |
af |
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gu-IN |
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47 |
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Growth |
29.73% |
ar |
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he |
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46 |
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be |
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hi-IN |
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45 |
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ca |
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hr |
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44 |
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cs |
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hu |
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43 |
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da |
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id |
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42 |
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de |
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is |
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41 |
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el |
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it |
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40 |
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en-GB |
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ja |
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39 |
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en-US |
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ja-JP-mac |
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38 |
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es-AR |
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ka |
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37 |
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Languages added |
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5 |
ar |
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es-ES |
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kn |
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36 |
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Growth |
15.63% |
bg |
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eu |
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ko |
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35 |
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ca |
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fi |
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ku |
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34 |
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cs |
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fr |
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lt |
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33 |
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da |
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fy-NL |
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lv |
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32 |
Langs added |
4 |
ar |
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de |
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ga-IE |
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mk |
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31 |
Growth |
14.29% |
ca |
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el |
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gu-IN |
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ml |
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30 |
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cs |
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en-GB |
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he |
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mn |
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29 |
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da |
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en-US |
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hu |
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mr |
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28 |
ast-ES |
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de |
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es-AR |
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id |
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ms |
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27 |
ca-AD |
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el |
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es-ES |
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it |
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nb-NO |
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26 |
cs-CZ |
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en-GB |
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eu |
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ja |
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nl |
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25 |
da-DK |
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en-US |
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fi |
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ka |
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nn-NO |
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24 |
de-DE |
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es-AR |
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fr |
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ko |
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oc |
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23 |
el-GR |
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es-ES |
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fy-NL |
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ku |
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or |
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22 |
en-GB |
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eu |
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ga-IE |
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lt |
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pa-IN |
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21 |
en-US |
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fi |
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gu-IN |
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mk |
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pl |
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20 |
es-AR |
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fr |
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hu |
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mn |
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pt-BR |
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19 |
es-ES |
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ga-IE |
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it |
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nb-NO |
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pt-PT |
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18 |
fi-FI |
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he |
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ja |
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nl |
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rm |
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17 |
fr-FR |
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hu |
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ko |
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nn-NO |
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ro |
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16 |
he-IL |
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it |
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lt |
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pa-IN |
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ru |
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15 |
hu-HU |
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ja |
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mk |
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pl |
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si |
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14 |
it-IT |
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ko |
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mn |
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pt-BR |
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sk |
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13 |
ja-JP |
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mk |
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nb-NO |
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pt-PT |
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sl |
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12 |
ko-KR |
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nb-NO |
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nl |
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ro |
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sq |
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11 |
nb-NO |
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nl |
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nn-NO |
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ru |
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sr |
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10 |
nl-NL |
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pl |
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pl |
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si |
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sv-SE |
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9 |
pl-PL |
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pt-BR |
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pt-BR |
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sk |
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ta |
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8 |
pt-BR |
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ro |
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pt-PT |
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sl |
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ta-LK |
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7 |
ro-RO |
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ru |
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ru |
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sq |
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te |
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6 |
ru-RU |
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sk |
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sk |
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sr |
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th |
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5 |
sl-SI |
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sl |
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sl |
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sv-SE |
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tr |
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4 |
sv-SE |
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sv-SE |
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sv-SE |
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tr |
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uk |
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3 |
tr-TR |
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tr |
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tr |
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uk |
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vi |
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2 |
zh-CN |
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zh-CN |
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zh-CN |
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zh-CN |
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zh-CN |
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1 |
zh-TW |
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zh-TW |
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zh-TW |
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zh-TW |
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zh-TW |
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With the release of Firefox 3.5, Mozilla added twenty-seven localizations and grew our locale count by 56.25%. Future versions of this graph might include an overlay that shows Firefox usage statistics for each of these locales. I’ll work with Ken Kovash to figure out some more ways to interesting present the data.
Tags: firefox 3.5, l10n, planet | Categories: Uncategorized
en-US seems to be missing from the 3.5 column…
Yeah, Justin, you’re right. I’ll fix that.
Actually, Justin, that’s a typo. en-ZA is in there, but we haven’t shipped that yet. I will make sure to update that image so we have en-US in its place.
Nice!
Consider exporting it to an HTML table, so it’s not just a black hole for people that are using screen readers? We are a web organization, after all.
Thanks for the recommendation, Alexander. I knew I’d get pinged about that once I put it up there as a jpeg file.
Will do it today.
ja-JP-mac is a dialect of ja for Mac users, so you should not count it. Moreover, ja-JP-mac localization is also available for previous versions, even for Firefox 1 as ja-JPM.
Fuji-san:
Are you sure? The Mozilla team has to build it, test it, and maintain it just like any other locale. Why would we not count this? Using that rationale, I guess we should remove en-GB? What about any future “English” localizations that might arise? These would be dialects as well.
Measurable work goes into producing this ja-JPM “localization”, so I disagree with you, it should be counted.
Adding it to the other releases is something I will update.
Thanks!
“Over time” here is two words. “Overtime” is the extended work hours you contribute to the localization effort in exchange for bonus pay
maybe i have been putting in too much overtime. but, thanks for the corrections. i made the change!
seth:
It is OK. It seems that Mozilla has not been counting any platform-specific localization. Ex. all.html:
> Japanese 日本語 3.5 Download(Win, ja) Download(Mac, ja-JP-mac) Download(Linux, ja)
I’m glad you think Japanese localizers are creating two localizations at once.
I’m sure that from Mozilla’s point of view, locales like ja-JP-mac and en-GB count just like any other locale because there is work involved. But from the user’s point of view, they don’t carry the same weight as the addition of an entirely new language.
MBM: yes, as we all know, localization is a lot more than just translating strings. I think from a user point of view, the en-GB localization matters quite a bit, and that’s an opinion that’s supported by thousands of downloads and active users. If it weren’t much different, why would users want it?
Why is it that Mozilla is using these non-standard codes to identify their locales, anyway? In particular, I’m referring to the aforementioned ja-JP-mac/ja-JPM, as well as zh-CN/zh-TW, which I presume are really just Simplified/Traditional. If that’s the case, that is long-deprecated notation: http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/#ri20040429.113217290
(Then again, the Properties dialog box doesn’t even recognize script codes as being such; they get the default treatment of presenting unknowns as literals. By that I mean, “en-US” gets represented as “English (United States)”, but “zh-Hant” gets represented as “Chinese (Hant)” instead of “Chinese (Traditional)” or the like.)
ja-JP-mac is historic evil, and just not evil enough to die.
Script codes will come soon, if there’s something that doesn’t work, please make sure that bugs are files and CC :l10n? Thanks.
Re zh-CN vs zh-TW, those are actually country specific, as the two have different country-specific search engine setups.
For the record, this somewhat-off-topic discussion led to further discussion on Bug 356038.