Also Chinese here. I’m inclined not to have a localization unless it is as excellent as (or at least close to) the translation of Coca-Cola.
However, I still want to share some of my ideas.
Similar to the post I’m replying to, I also want to find characters that are close in both pronunciation and meaning.
The ty part is pronounced as tài in Chinese.
So far, everyone has been trying to find characters with the exact pronunciation, but none of them convey a related meaning.
My idea is to tweak tài to tà.
It might not be a 100% match in pronunciation, but now we have a candidate — 拓, which literally means “to rub” or “frottage”.
The motivation is that writing is like rubbing ideas from our minds onto paper, and later compiling into PDF is also a kind of rubbing.
The whole process feels like rubbing your ideas onto a tangible medium.
For the p in Typst, it can be considered as pǔ or bù in Chinese (by switching between voiceless and voiced consonants).
To the best of my knowledge, I don’t recall a character pronounced pǔ that conveys the meaning of writing or typesetting.
However, I think 篰 (bù) is a nice candidate.
It refers to the bamboo strips that were used for writing in ancient times.
I also like the character 排 (pái) mentioned in the post I’m replying to, which has already been explained there in detail.
The st part is tricky.
My idea is to reduce either s or t.
One random idea is to use 梭 (suō), which originally refers to the shuttle used in weaving.
It’s sharp and swift.
There’s also the Chinese saying “时光如梭,” meaning “time flies like a shuttle.”
As a conclusion, my proposal is 拓篰梭 (tà-bù-suō) or 拓排梭 (tà-pái-suō).
To be honest, I wouldn’t vote for these either; I just want to keep the discussion going and hopefully spark more creative ideas. :)