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+TRANSLATING VIM MESSAGES
+
+In this directory you will find xx.po files, where "xx" is a language code.
+Each file contains the translation of English Vim messages for one language.
+The files are in "po" format, used by the gettext package.  Please refer to
+the gettext documentation for more information.
+
+The GNU gettext library, starting with version 0.10.37, supports converting
+messages from one encoding to another.  This requires that it was compiled
+with HAVE_ICONV.  The result is that the messages may be in any encoding
+supported by iconv and will be automatically converted to the currently used
+encoding.
+
+The GNU gettext library, starting with version 0.10.36, uses a new format for
+some encodings.  This folows the C99 standard for strings.  It means that when
+a multi-byte character includes the 0x5c byte, this is not recognized as a
+backslash.  Since this format is incompatible with Solaris, Vim uses the old
+format.  This is done by setting the OLD_PO_FILE_OUTPUT and OLD_PO_FILE_INPUT
+environment variables.  When you use the Makefile in this directory that will
+be done for you.  This does NOT work with gettext 0.10.36.  Don't use it, get
+0.10.37.
+
+
+ON MS-WINDOWS
+
+The distributed files are generated on Unix, but this should also be possible
+on MS-Windows.  Download the gettext packages, for example from:
+
+	http://sourceforge.net/projects/gettext
+
+You might have to do the commands manually.  Example:
+
+   cd c:\vim\vim60
+   mkdir runtime\lang\ja\LC_MESSAGES
+   msgfmt -o runtime\lang\ja\LC_MESSAGES\vim.mo src\po\ja.po
+
+
+WHEN THERE IS A MISTAKE
+
+If you find there is a mistake in one of the translations, please report this
+to the maintainer of the translation.  His/her E-mail address is in the
+comments at the start of the file.  You can also see this with the ":messages"
+command in Vim when the translation is being used.
+
+
+CREATING A NEW PO FILE
+
+We will use "xx.po" as an example here, replace "xx" with the name of your
+language.
+
+- Edit Makefile to add xx to LANGUAGES and xx.mo to MOFILES.
+- Copy the header of an existing file, e.g., de.po, to xx.po.  Do not copy any
+  of the translated messages, delete everything after the "msgstr".
+- The remaining work is like updating, see the next section.
+
+
+UPDATING A PO FILE
+
+If you are the maintainer of a .po file, this is how you update the file.  We
+will use "xx.po" as an example here, replace "xx" with the name of your
+language.
+
+(1) Add new and changed messages from the Vim sources:
+
+	make xx
+
+    This will extract all the strings from Vim and merge them in with the
+    existing translations.  Requires the GNU gettext utilities.  Also requires
+    unpacking the extra archive.
+    Your original xx.po file will be copied to xx.po.orig
+
+    -- After you do this, you MUST do the next three steps! --
+
+(2) Translate
+    See the gettext documentation on how to do this.  You can also find
+    examples in the other po files.
+    Search the po file for items that require translation:
+
+	/fuzzy\|^msgstr ""\(\n"\)\@!
+
+    Remove the "#, fuzzy" line after adding the translation.
+
+    There is one special message:
+	msgid "Messages maintainer: Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org>"
+    You should include your name and E-mail address instead, for example:
+	msgstr "Berichten übersetzt bei: John Doe <john@doe.org>"
+
+(3) Clean up
+    This is very important to make sure the translation works on all systems.
+    Comment-out all non-translated strings.  There are two types:
+    - items marked with "#, fuzzy"
+    - items with an empty msgstr
+    You can do this with the cleanup.vim script:
+
+	:source cleanup.vim
+
+    Background: on Solaris an empty msgstr results in an empty message; GNU
+    gettext ignores empty strings and items marked with "#, fuzzy".
+
+(4) Check:
+
+	make xx.mo
+
+    Look out for syntax errors and fix them.