Localization, which comes from “locale” in English (“regional options”), and is sometimes abbreviated l10n, covers a range of activities involved in the technical, linguistic and cultural adaptation of an IT product into a foreign language and for a given region in the world. Localization can be applied to all types of IT products (software, hardware, multimedia formats, Web sites and other). It involves several different fields (salespeople, engineers, desktop publishers, and skilled language practitioners in both technical translation and the IT field).

Localization of content on Internet, for example, is a very challenging task when you consider that a Web site is on display and accessible to the entire world. A visitor’s attention must be captured in the very first minutes, even seconds, to lead to a sufficiently long visit to the site to transmit the message the site wants to convey. Localization professionals constantly face technical challenges posed by the constraints inherent in information technologies.

Cultural diversity must therefore be taken into account when the various language versions of a Web site are being prepared. This involves both form and substance. It must avoid all inappropriate cultural references yet propose a powerful message that has been carefully thought out, relevant to the culture, and that takes IT constraints into account.

Athenea Omnilang works in this perspective for all localization projects and provides the following linguistic services:

1. Creation of glossaries dedicated to the project
2. Preparation of translation memories
3. Adaptation/rewriting
4. Translation
5. Editing
6. Proofreading

Athenea Omnilang proposes these services in the following languages and sectors*: