How much work is a translation/localization

[Carsten Agger]

I'd like to understand how much work it would take to localize Ubuntu 
into a completely new language where no volunteers were available but 
commercial translation is.

How much work would it be to translate the standard edition of Ubuntu 
with all pre-installed programs? In terms of hours or weeks? How many words?

I'm trying to see how I might arrive at an estimate. It would, of 
course, also be necessary to do technical work like creating new 
language packages.


Best,
Carsten