Ram Dak wrote:

I would like to initiate and oversee (and possibly sponsor) the development a translation of Drupal into my native language Tamil, one of the many languages of India. It is spoken by about 65 million people all over the world.

I am looking forward to see Tamil added to our repository :)

I have been with Drupal for about 15 months, but have no idea whatsoever about translation and would appreciate advice on how to get this rolling.

I'll try to help. I have to admit that I don't translate much myself and so others should offer suggestions as well.

Should I apply for a CVS account?

Once you have translated a part of the Drupal strings.

Should I concentrate on the core platform first?

Yes

What about contrib modules?

Do that later.

Should I start from scratch or use the stuff done by a few already?

There might be other projects which already have been translated to Tamil. You might be able to use their translations as a sort of dictionary. I would look at the bigger projects like Gnome or KDE.

I think you should have a look at our handbook: http://drupal.org/node/11130

I've tried to describe the process there. Please point out any inconsitencies or parts that are unclear so the can be clarified. You should start your translation with the file general.pot, it contains strings that are used in more than one place and therefore has the best initial return on investment. It is also needed for the packaging system to work.

Cheers, Gerhard