revision & translation of errors and other messages

Hello,

I'd like to arrange for Maxima to translate error messages and
other messages via gettext (a message translation system).
If I understand correctly there is typically a .po file for each
language which lists the translated strings and their translations.
These are compile into a .mo file and loaded at run time.
The function gettext fetches a translation, if there is one,
from a hash table. Many free software projects use this system.

I found a CL implementation of gettext:
http://users.actrix.co.nz/mycroft/intl.lisp
I got permission from the author to license it by GPLv2.
(There is a gettext implementation in Clisp but it is written
in C. I couldn't find any others in Lisp.)

If there isn't too much opposition I'd like to arrange for
MERROR and MTELL to run their arguments through gettext.
The gettext code is pretty straightforward but I'll need some
help about putting .po/.mo files in the right place. Also of course
we'll need to find someone to make each .po file.

As part of this effort, I am planning to revise the existing
messages to a uniform format; the messages were written
by many people according to different conventions, so I
think it's a good idea to make them all follow the same
convention before translating them.

Hope this helps. Thanks for any comments.

Robert Dodier