This directory contains support for the internationalization (i18n for short) of Python. It primarily consists of "message catalogs", which are files containing natural-language messages in source code, along with translations to various other natural languages. At the moment, there is only one catalog: python.pot. This catalog is intended to contain all translatable messages of Python proper. Normally, translatable strings must carry mark-up, so tools know which strings need translation. For Python, doc strings are normally intended to be read by the user, so they can also be translated. Therefore, the Python catalog contains both marked-up strings and doc strings. At the moment, no strings are marked-up, though. This catalog was created with François Pinard's xpot tool. It has been submitted to the Free Translation Project for translation into various languages. If you want to translate python.pot into your languages, feel free to, but please contact your language's team first (via email to LL@li.org, where LL is your two-letter country code, or on http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/index.html). The message catalogs will be stored in the po directory (including both .pot and .po). The CVS will also carry binary message catalogs formatted in the GNU gettext format, for use with Python 2.0. There will be one subdirectory per country code with translations. For information, ask i18n-sig@python.org