449112 - Fix Arabic Google for Kurdish

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Mozilla Localizations :: ku / Kurdish, defect)

Description

[Erdal Ronahi]

While Firefox 3 has shipped in Kurdish, the Google search box is still broken. This is what happens to a typical user of Kurdish Firefox 3 on Windows in Turkey:

After typing a search term into the search box and hitting return, Google returns an interface in Arabic script. Changing this behaviour is extremely difficult, since Arabic script is unreadable to the average user who can't find the necessary options.

This has been reproducible for months. You can reproduce this behavior by calling http://www.google.com.tr/search?hl=ku&q=Firefox&btnG=%DA%AF%D9%87%E2%80%8C%DA%95%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C+Google&meta= . The reason for this is that at Google the locale "ku" is used for the Arabic script variant of Kurdish. Google is not responsive in this issue.

A possible solution would be to use Yahoo! as the primary search engine. A better solution would be to prevent Google somehow from the Kurdish language interface.

At the moment we are using just "ku" as an identifier, would a country locale like ku-TR help?

Comment 1

[Seth Bindernagel]

I spoke with Harvey (copied here) and he responded quickly.  

It is fine to move the default search for Kurdish from Google to Yahoo!.

Pike, next steps?  My guess is that we should be able to make this change for 3.0.2.  But, it will require us to change the default search in the Kurdish localization to Yahoo!.

Comment 2

[Mic Berman]

next steps on me. 
erdal - ok per comment #0. Kevin can you let Google know and let us know of any response.

Erdal, my understanding is you are recommending we swap order of search plug in to: 
yahoo - primary
google - secondary

can you confirm that please

Comment 3

[Erdal Ronahi]

Correct, that is the workaround that we propose at the moment.

Comment 4

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

Google has been notified, and I'll update the bug with any response I receive.

Comment 5

[Erdal Ronahi]

Stas informed me at FOSDEM that there have been talks with Google about this. The issue might also be fixed by using en-US as the locale that is handed over to Google. But it should be fixed somehow, it leaves a terrible first impression to new users.

Comment 6

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

Kev, do you have any updates regarding comment 4?

Comment 7

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

Hi Erdal. Sorry for keeping you waiting. We're trying to fix this asap.

I read through the wikipedia article on Kurdish scripts and it is my understanding that we're using the Hawar alphabet in Firefox UI (used mostly in Turkey), whereas Google uses the Sorani alphabet (used mostly in Iran and Iraq). Is this correct?

On the actual work-around that you're proposing:  I wasn't able to find a Kurdish (Hawar) version of Yahoo search. Are you proposing that we use the standard search plug-in from en-US that's pointing to yahoo.com (English interface)?

Comment 8

[Erdal Ronahi]

Exactly, Stas. We are really desperate on this and are ready to accept anything that makes the Sorani Google go away. I think it was Axel who said it would be easier to change the default search engine (to en-US Yahoo) than to get an arrangement with Google. We would prefer Google with en-US locale, but if that's not possible, Yahoo would be a workaround.

One addition: it's only Google that uses the Arabic script. Firefox, OpenOffice.org, the Debian Installer, Ubuntu and many more free software projects all use the Latin (Hawar) script for Kurdish.

Comment 9

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

Thanks for the clarification, Erdal. So, the assumption I am going with is that - given the current state of the ku localization for Google - the preference for a default search is Google with English results. We'd also reiterate to Google that it'd be really nice if they would localize ku for Hawar as well as Sorani (the extra info on other projects is helpful, thanks).

Making the start page change in the browser is, as far as I understand, non-trivial because of the way we currently localize the Firefox start page (via mozilla/other-licenses/branding/firefox/locale/browserconfig.properties). We'd need to do some form of redirect from the ku.start3.mozilla.com/firefox/?yadayada to include the hl=en argument. We'd also need to modify the default search plugin, and I have to verify whether that presents any challenges. 

The easiest way to address the start page would be to have Google return english results for the Firefox start. To that end, I have put in a request to the Google search team asking if it is possible to include the hl=en argument on the redirect that is issued from Google when the start page is loaded (Google always performs a redirect when we hit the host ku.start3.mozilla.com points at). 

If that's not possible, we'll have to explore other options, and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

If my assumptions are not correct, please let me know.

Comment 10

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

We can create a modified google.xml search plugin that would hard-code "en" as the language code. Same with the keyword.URL and siteSearchURL. So the only challenge might be with the start page.

Comment 11

[Erdal Ronahi]

Kev, some more details on what has happened with Google so far. 

Google had the Arabic script localization very early, in 2005 I think. Since then it's not maintained, we have been translating new strings in the Latin script since. So Google has actually a mixed script translation, but more than 90% are Arabic. 

We have offered to do a second, Latin script translation, since it's actually not only a script issue, but there are two distinct Kurdish dialects (some say languages) involved. Google declined, saying there can be only one script for a language. But we were not able to discuss this further with them because they just don't answer to our mails.

So if you talk to Google, please underline that we will be happy to do a Kurdish (Kurmanji) translation of the Google interface if they allow it. That has been our offer since 2005.

Comment 12

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

Kev, any updates here? What can we do to redirect ku.start3.mozilla.com/firefox/ to Google with "hl=en"? Is this managed on our side? Who would you recommend I talk to?

Comment 13

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Note, we're not doing a redirect, we're doing a DNS alias, and I guess that google does the redirect after that.

What I'm curious on the general front. Google switched from doing language selection based on accept-language to geo-location. So if I'm in Paris, I get google in French, while I get it in German while at home.

I'd expect that people inside Turkey thus would actually end up with a Turkish google interface, independent of UI locale. Do we have someone in the region to verify?

That doesn't change that you end up with an Arabic Kurdish if you try to select it, but it shouldn't come as a surprise, as you choose Kurdish from the menu in Arabic script.

Comment 14

[Erdal Ronahi]

I cannot confirm the geo-location thing, on the contrary! I am in central Europe, and I get the Arabic Google page not only after every installation, but also after every security update!

Our users in Turkey are increasingly switching to Opera because of this, so the geo-location does not work there, either.

Comment 15

[Erdal Ronahi]

Attachment: Use English as default language for all Google searches

Together with Rail, we wrote a patch to make English the default language for all kinds of Google searches. Hopefully, this will end this story which was been going on for much too long now. Please review.

Comment 16

[Rail Aliiev [:rail]]

Staś, IIRC you said that the review should be done by Kev. Should Erdal move the r? over him?

Comment 17

[Seth Bindernagel]

Comment on attachment 456353 [details] [diff] [review]
Use English as default language for all Google searches

Stas will be on travels this week for a personal holiday.  But, you should be able to get a review from Kev.  I'll flag him for a review now, and if he is not the correct person, Stas can look at it when he gets back.

Comment 18

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

Looks good. Is there any need to make any modifications to the default mailto handler for webmail for Google, or is that not something that's affected?

Comment 19

[Erdal Ronahi]

I don't think that would be affected, there is no translation of GMail into Kurdish anyway, if that's what you mean.

Comment 20

[Rail Aliiev [:rail]]

Comment on attachment 456353 [details] [diff] [review]
Use English as default language for all Google searches

Pushed to:
http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/ku/rev/0e7910c4d4fd

Should be available in the next nightly build.

Comment 21

[Erdal Ronahi]

Works fine in the Linux build.

Comment 22

[Erdal Ronahi]

Tested the nightlies on Linux and Windows, worked fine. Thanks for helping.