Jambo OpenOffice, the Swahili version of OpenOffice, has been released, the Open Swahili Localization Project (Kilinux), announced on Saturday.

According to the press release, "Swahili is the most spoken of the Bantu languages and conservative estimates indicate that is the first language spoken by more than 70m people, chiefly in Kenya, Tanzania, Congo (Kinshasa), and Uganda. As the chief trade language of East Africa, it is understood by an additional 25m."

Dr. Hashim Twaakyondo, overall project coordinator said that the project aimed to localize all Linux components into Swahili.

Before starting the localization of the 18.000 strings of OpenOffice, the team developed and released a Swahili IT Glossary. The first version of the glossary was released in October, and contained over seven hundred computer related terms in English and their Swahili equivalents.

OpenOffice is a leading international effort to provide a free and open source office suite based on open standards and capable of running on all major computer platforms.

The next official release of Jambo OpenOffice will be in February 2005. ®

Related stories

Novell rolls out Linux Desktop 9
Novell aims Linux at corporate desktops
Open Source ready for prime time in UK.gov, says OGC