The first Northern Sotho file has been added to the Gnome desktop environment. The package gnome-mime-data provides names for the various filetypes on the computer. Now the phrase "Microsoft Excel spreadsheet" will appear as "Lelokelelo la ditokumente la Microsoft Excel" for Northern Sotho users of Gnome.

This is the first of a number of files that will be added to the Gnome project to allow users of Gnome to enjoy the Linux desktop in Northern Sotho. These translations should form part of Gnome release 2.8.2 which is due to be released near 6 December 2004. It is a continuation of the project that has already seen Afrikaans translations added to Gnome and is sponsored by The Shuttleworth Foundation.