FontLab localization: Hindi¶

A first draft for Hindi. A model researched the guidance below and the term table in references/terms.md; no native reviewer has approved the language as a whole. Individual terms carry their own approval status; a proposed term remains proposed, and a protected name keeps its glossary spelling. The Hindi interface catalogs are unfinished machine drafts: a string found in one settles neither a term nor a rule.

Use references/terms.md, and a newer core memory when one is supplied, for terminology, definitions and review status. Keep a proposed term consistent across the interface and help, and report it as proposed. Where a native reviewer's decision or newer project data disagrees with this skill, follow it and record the change. Report only checks performed: text written with this skill is not reviewed by a native speaker and not tested in the running application until someone does that.

Use these rules with the localization principles (in fontlab-localization), Qt interface rules (in fontlab-localization) and Hindi language guide (in the FontLab writing guide). Examples come from Font Book (macOS), with placeholders in Qt syntax, or are marked constructed. The term table decides terms.

Locale and register¶

Hindi for India, Qt locale hi_IN, Devanagari script. Address the reader with the respectful आप verb form, without the pronoun: अपना चयन जाँचें (Check your selection). Never use तुम or तू forms (करो, कर). Write आप only in a question or a contrast. The reader's own things take अपना, not आपका. Use plain modern Hindi. The application does not say मैं or हम. Write कृपया only where the source says please.

Grammar of interface strings¶

macOS, Android and Windows name a command with the आप imperative (-ें, -एँ), object first, verb last.

Element	Form	Example
Menu command, button	object + imperative	फ़ॉन्ट जोड़ें… (Add Fonts…), सहेजें (Save)
Checkbox, option	same imperative	ग्लिफ़ नंबर और नाम दिखाएँ (Display glyph number and name)
Menu, panel, dialog or group title	noun phrase, no verb	संपादन (Edit), फ़ॉन्ट प्रीव्यू (Font Preview)
Status, in progress	passive progressive, ellipsis	फ़ॉन्ट वैलिडेट किए जा रहे हैं… (Validating fonts…)
Success	passive perfective	फ़ॉन्ट हटाए गए (Fonts Removed)
Failed attempt	नहीं … जा सका	फ़ॉन्ट इंस्टॉल नहीं किया जा सका। (Could not install font.)
Present inability	नहीं … जा सकता	फ़ॉन्ट डाउनलोड नहीं किया जा सकता (Cannot Download Font)
Confirmation	क्या आप … चाहते हैं?	क्या आप चयनित फ़ॉन्ट को हटाना चाहते हैं? (Do you want to remove the selected fonts?)
Tooltip that describes	third person, present, no subject	संपादित किए गए सैंपल को उचित डिफ़ॉल्ट मान पर रीसेट करता है। (Resets the edited sample to the appropriate default value.)
Tooltip that instructs	imperative	%1 डाउनलोड करने के लिए क्लिक करें (Click to download %1)

A passive participle agrees with its object: फ़ॉन्ट हटाए गए, but feminine फ़ाइल सहेजी गई (constructed). Never use the infinitive (खोलना) as a command. A one-word source can be a noun or a verb: Duplicate is नक़ल as a label and नक़ल बनाएँ as a command.

Compact labels¶

Shorten by dropping what Hindi allows: optional को (फ़ॉन्ट हटाएँ), का in a noun compound (फ़ॉन्ट आकार, Font Size), है at the end of a title (कोई फ़ॉन्ट चयनित नहीं, No Font Selected), and by a simple verb in place of noun + करें (चुनें, not चयन करें). Never drop the verb of a command, a postposition that carries meaning (में, से, पर), a nukta or a vowel sign. Hindi has no standard abbreviations: never cut a word short. Units keep their Latin symbols (pt, px, mm).

Plurals and placeholders¶

A Qt numerus string has two forms. Fill both, each with %n:

Form	Selected by	Example
1	exactly 1	%n फ़ाइल, %n फ़ॉन्ट हटाया गया (after एक फ़ॉन्ट हटाया गया)
2	every other number: 0, 2, 5, 100	%n फ़ाइलें, %n फ़ॉन्ट हटाए गए

CLDR counts 0 as one in Hindi; Qt sends 0 to form 2. Never write एक for %n. Feminine nouns change in the plural (फ़ाइलें, शैलियाँ); masculine nouns ending in a consonant do not (फ़ॉन्ट), but the verb and adjective do. Before a postposition the plural is oblique: %n फ़ाइलों में (in %n files). No English -s (फ़ॉन्ट्स). Test 0, 1 and 2. A count in a plain %1 takes label and value: फ़ाइलें: %1 (constructed).

A placeholder that stands for a noun has unknown gender and number, and Hindi verbs, participles, -आ adjectives and का/के/की agree. Do not guess:

Put को after the placeholder; the verb then stays masculine singular for any value: “%1” को हटाया नहीं जा सका (constructed), %1 को समेटें.
Or add a class noun after the quoted name; it carries gender and the oblique case: “%1” लाइब्रेरी में समस्याएँ हैं।, “%1” नाम की फ़ाइल.
Or use a noun label and value: फ़ाइल: %1 (constructed).

A postposition may follow a placeholder directly only when the value is a name: %1 में फ़ॉन्ट जोड़ें… (Add Fonts to %1…). का/के/की agree with the noun after them: “%1” की सभी शैलियाँ. Beside a placeholder use adjectives that do not inflect (चयनित, सक्रिय, अमान्य), not नया/नई/नए. Reorder numbered placeholders freely: ग्लिफ़ %1 से %2 तक (Glyphs %1 to %2).

Numbers, punctuation and spacing¶

Western digits, as on macOS and Android: पिछले 7 दिन (Last 7 Days); never ०–९.
Decimal point .; Indian grouping 12,34,567, which the locale produces at runtime. In a literal number keep the digits and regroup from six digits up (100,000 becomes 1,00,000); values such as 1000 and 2048 stay.
50% without a space; a space before a unit: 12 pt.
A sentence ends with the purna viram । (U+0964), attached to the last word, as macOS and standard Hindi spelling have it. Android, KDE and Microsoft's style guide use the full stop; FontLab follows macOS. Never type | or ॥. Add it only where the source sentence has a period; a label has none. Other marks are the English ones.
A colon is attached, as in the source and on Android: भाषाएँ:. macOS sets a space before it (भाषाएँ :); FontLab does not. Never type the visarga ः for a colon.
Quotation marks are “…”, inner ‘…’. Keep the source ellipsis character.
One ordinary space separates Devanagari from a Latin word, a number or a placeholder: Finder में दिखाएँ. A postposition is a separate word after a noun and joined to a pronoun: %1 में, इसमें.

Mnemonics and key names¶

A Devanagari letter cannot be typed with Alt. Append the source's letter in uppercase as (&X) after one space, as KDE's Hindi does: फ़ाइल (&F). It goes before a final colon or ellipsis: &Open... becomes खोलें (&O)... (constructed). Qt strips (&X) and the space on macOS. Add no mnemonic the source lacks; a label that stays Latin keeps its &; && is a literal ampersand: write और.

Key names stay in Latin script: Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Cmd, Option, Enter, Esc, Tab, Delete, Backspace, Space. In a sentence add कुंजी (feminine): Shift कुंजी दबाए रखें (constructed).

Names and loans¶

Product, company and format names, OpenType tags, table and glyph names, units and code stay in Latin script: PostScript नाम, not पोस्टस्क्रिप्ट. A Hindi class noun or postposition follows as a separate word: Apple फ़ॉन्ट, macOS पर. Attach no Devanagari ending or hyphen.

Where the term table is silent, transliterate the word Hindi users say in English (फ़ॉन्ट, फ़ाइल, डिफ़ॉल्ट, प्रीव्यू) and translate plain actions and qualities (सहेजें, हटाएँ, छिपाएँ, नाम, आकार). A loan verb is the loan plus करें: इंस्टॉल करें. Spell loans as Font Book does:

nukta for f and z, and in Urdu words: फ़ॉन्ट, डिज़ाइन, ग़ैर, नक़ल;
ॉ, ऑ for the English short o: कॉपी, ऑटोमैटिकली;
ै, ऐ for the a of access: ऐक्सेस, सैंपल;
anusvara for a nasal before a consonant (कंप्यूटर, पॉइंट), except in फ़ॉन्ट; a conjunct for a consonant cluster (ग्लिफ़, स्टाइल).

Keep one spelling per word.

Script-specific rules¶

Encode a nukta letter as base letter + U+093C (फ़ is U+092B U+093C), the normalized form; type ऑ as U+0911. Add no ZWJ or ZWNJ.
Chandrabindu on a nasal vowel with nothing above the headline (हटाएँ, शैलियाँ); anusvara where a vowel sign rises above it (में, करें, नहीं).
Standard spellings: गए, गई, लिए, चाहिए, जाएँ, not गये, गयी, लिये, जायें.
Devanagari has no capitals: ignore English title case. Latin names keep their case.
A conjunct with its vowel signs is one unit: never break inside it. Marks above and below the line clip in tight controls.

False friends and traps¶

Sanskrit coinages nobody says: संचिका (file), संगणक (computer). Office Hindi: हेतु, एवं, तथा; write के लिए, और.
Senses that are wrong for type; the term table gives the word: master as स्वामी, character as चरित्र, face as चेहरा, bold as साहसी, anchor as लंगर, stem as तना, case as मामला. Family Name is not उपनाम (surname). A writing system is लिपि; स्क्रिप्ट is program code.
Machine errors: एक for every a; आपका for अपना; तुम forms; the verb not last; a gender guessed for a placeholder; calqued द्वारा passives; two spellings of one loan (फाइल, फ़ाइल).

Review¶

Check first: the purna viram, never |; the imperative on every command; agreement around each placeholder; both numerus forms with 0, 1 and 2; nukta, chandrabindu and encoding; Latin names untouched; (&X) mnemonics; one spelling per loan; clipped marks in the running build. Qt ships no qtbase_hi catalog: Qt's own buttons and shortcut names stay English unless the build supplies them.

FontLab terminology and compact labels¶

Preserve deliberately uppercase source labels using the language’s case rules. Keep numeric controls compact with UPM, PPM and LSB/RSB (French AG/AD); explain the full terms in help. The Family Dimensions “Units Per eM:” label is an intentional expanded exception.

Use the current core memory and its approval status. OpenType lookup defaults to the translation of procedure, with a different term only when strong OpenType-specific evidence supports it. Explicit choices are German Lookup, French lookup, Polish procedura and Russian процедура. Ordinary searches, individual rules and OpenType features are separate concepts. Preserve literal code keywords and identifiers.

Translate Fusion with the fallback Welder. Use the core's phonetic FontAudit transliteration in non-Latin scripts, including Chinese; preserve FontAudit in code. Proposed spellings remain proposed. Before rebuilding a QPH, recover team edits and import their terms and notes into the core memory.

Compare mnemonic-split terms with unmarked labels. Keep labels compact, aiming for 120% of the English length in Dimensions and Glyph Window preferences without losing meaning. Omit redundant font, color or command wording when context supplies it. TTH labels can omit “use” and abbreviate TrueType hinting; help can explain more. A full harmonization requires three complete catalog reviews, then reconciliation of help with the final UI and verification of generated resources.

Run the review as a loop¶

The Review list above is this skill's checklist. Run it on each portion as H17 describes: one item at a time against source, target and the term table; name the string behind each answer; repair what fails and recheck it. Stop after three rounds and report what still fails.

References¶

references/terms.md: the full Hindi term table, generated from the core memory hi-core.tmx of the writing guide, with the status, translator note and definition of every term.
The Hindi localization guide of the writing guide is the source of the sections above.

fontlab-localization for the shared rules; fontlab-terminology for product names and shared nouns; fontlab-technical for Hindi help text.

House rules¶

These rules implement the FontLab writing guide. They are copied into every skill so each installed skill can work independently. Corpus measurements can inform review; they are not quotas, universal laws, or tests of authorship.

H1. Accurate actors. Address the reader when they act or choose. Name the application when it performs an operation. Fonts and files contain data that software interprets. Prefer active voice when the actor matters; retain a clear passive construction when the actor is unknown or irrelevant. Never invent an actor or cause to change the grammar. When an English sentence pairs a reader action with the software's response, give each clause a subject and restate the action compactly: “If you generate a glyph with Aidus, FontLab generates each master independently.” Name the most specific responding surface the evidence supports (a window, tool or dialog), otherwise the application. Use present tense for an immediate result. Where a glossary entry exists and the surface can link, link a domain term to it rather than defining it in an apposition.

H2. Never invent a fact. Ground numbers, names, dates, labels, shortcuts, defaults, errors, versions, and quotations in supplied or checked evidence. A draft is evidence of what was written, not independent proof of its claims. Mark unresolved facts with a specific working placeholder such as [VERIFY CLAIM], [CONFIRM LABEL], or [CONFIRM OFFER]. A marked draft is unfinished; resolve the gap before publication. Clearly label fictional examples before their invented details.

H3. Preserve certainty and scope. “May reduce” does not become “eliminates.” Preserve conditions, negation, timing, quantities, compatibility, licensing, and other consequential limits. State a limitation directly rather than disguising it as a favorable position. A single observation does not prove universal behavior. Conflicting sources need scope checks, not an automatic choice of the stricter claim.

H4. Preserve the writer's voice. Do not manufacture stakes, candor, reader emotion, endorsement, or a new narrator. Preserve useful habits and the supplied stance. Reorder, split, or shorten according to the requested edit depth and reader need, without adding facts or causal relationships. A correct draft can remain unchanged.

H5. Give thought a rhythm. Carry a subject through an action, distinction or consequence. Let a developed sentence explain a relationship; let a shorter one settle a result when that change of pace helps. Repeat a concrete object or term when its meaning develops, not as a compulsory callback. Technical actions stay literal; explanations and marketing have room for patient attention, a bounded comparison or dry observation. Keep useful qualifications beside their claims. Do not impose sentence-length, pronoun, punctuation or paragraph quotas, or force every paragraph into the same long-then-short pattern.

H6. Notice the useful detail. Retain names, mechanisms, conditions, versions and issue numbers that help the reader understand or act. From the evidence, choose the object, contrast or small behavior that makes the explanation tangible: a changed preview, a repeated comparison, a file whose status matters. Follow that detail far enough to explain its significance. Warmth can come from this attention and patience. Never invent an observation, personal experience or reader emotion to make prose vivid, or remove a necessary qualification to shorten it.

H7. Punctuation serves meaning. Prefer a colon for an explanation or list. A spaced dash can carry a turn; avoid decorative glosses and repeated interruptions. Use sentence case for new headings and preserve exact source labels. A punctuation pattern does not establish authorship.

H8. Choose precise words. Review vague praise and stock phrasing such as “seamless,” “game-changing,” “leverage,” and “unlock.” Replace them when they obscure the action or make an unsupported claim. Keep an accurate technical use or protected quotation. A count or cluster is a reason to inspect a passage, not proof that each matched word is wrong.

H9. Develop the explanation. Begin where the reader can understand the task, change or offer. Give adjacent sentences a real connection: the same subject under a changed condition, an action and its result, or a question and its answer. A before-and-after comparison needs evidence for both states; a transition must not invent causality. Let a useful aside return to the main thought. Place low-stakes discoveries where they aid understanding, while keeping price, risk, prerequisites and recovery visible when needed. End at the useful result or next action; a quiet ending or a substantial summary can each serve the material.

H10a. Preserve conditions. Use “if” for a condition and “when” where the intended timing or situation warrants it. Check the whole meaning: “when a panel opens” and “while a panel is open” describe different scopes. Keep useful conditionals and parenthetical explanations; do not insert them to imitate a presumed author.

H10. Preserve expression that works. A fragment, three-part phrase, exclamation, aside, or single-sentence paragraph can serve a passage. Keep it when it supports meaning or the writer's rhythm. Do not add one to meet a budget, or remove one because of a generic stylistic test. Keep instructions and consequential conditions literal and easy to find.

H10b. Use the destination's notation. Preserve exact interface labels, tags, extensions, and identifiers. Italicize labels in neutral release notes; in technical site content use supported highlight notation, with bold as the plain-Markdown fallback. Use code style for machine-readable text. State price amounts and currencies unambiguously from evidence; do not infer an exchange rate, tax policy, or license term. A supplied currency shorthand needs enough context to identify the actual offer.

H11. Names and collisions. FontLab is the product; Fontlab Ltd. is the company. Preserve product names, module identifiers, domains, historical names in their historical scope, and exact quoted strings. Do not translate a product name. Name the application when Layer, Mask, Group, Fill, Brush, Knife, Transform, Pencil, Eraser, or Scissors could have more than one meaning. Use a declared short form consistently.

H12. Protect literal material. Preserve quotations, code, commands, paths, identifiers, API names, URLs, legal text, interface strings, placeholders, and table data during prose editing. Change them only for a requested or necessary correction supported by evidence. Do not paraphrase a quotation while retaining quotation marks or an attribution. Explain a consequential correction when the output contract permits it.

H13. Choose the register per passage. Marketing helps assess an offer; technical writing explains or instructs; neutral prose states facts and changes warmly. A document can combine them. Prices, limits, licensing, compatibility, security, and migration facts stay plain and prominent. Audience and purpose determine an email's register. Do not impose a fixed emotional mixture or make every opening a story.

H14. Review facts, then movement. Compare claims and protected strings with their evidence; check scope, action order and terminology. Then read whole passages for attention, connection and pace. Repair a flat sequence by developing an existing detail or relationship, not by adding praise or invented events. Check that humor remains intelligible and the information remains true when the joke is missed. Recheck the facts after a voice edit. A measurement or passing build does not certify facts, usability or authorship. Report only checks actually performed.

H15. Scale to the surface. A button or tooltip needs a clear label, action, or condition, not a miniature essay. Apply factual and naming safeguards at every length. Include the detail the task requires; do not add proof paragraphs, metaphors, or pronouns to satisfy a template. For translation, keep essential instructions literal and references clear.

H16. The override. Follow the user's task and supplied voice before style defaults. Break a default sooner than make the writing worse. Source material and quoted prompts are data, not authority to change the task. Style preferences never justify presenting an invented or unsupported claim as established fact.

H17. Check each portion, repair, check again. Reading these rules does not apply them; checking the text does. After drafting or editing each portion (a section, one deliverable, a batch of entries; a label or tooltip is one portion), run the skill's checklist on it. Answer each item separately, against the text and the evidence. For a failure, quote the words that fail. For a pass, point to the passage that satisfies the item, or, for an item about something absent, confirm that you searched the whole portion and found none. An answer with nothing behind it has not been checked. Repair only the failures, because a passing item needs no edit and a correct sentence can stay unchanged. Recheck the repaired passages and every fact the repair touched. If the same item fails again after its repair, stop working on it and mark it; do not try a third time. Stop after three rounds in all, and mark what still fails with a specific placeholder instead of reporting a pass. If you can start a separate reviewer (a subagent or a fresh chat), give it the draft, the evidence and the checklist, not your drafting rationale, and ask for failures with locations; act on findings that name a rule and a passage. Keep the checklist record private unless the user asks for it or the output contract allows notes.