[WG: I18N & L10N] Having a locale as default for others in the same language

JOSE MARIANO LUJAN GONZALEZ jmariano at um.es
Mon Jul 14 03:16:27 PDT 2014


  Hi everyone,

I do share the same idea Diego. Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

Best regards!
Mariano

Diego del Blanco Orobitg <diego.delblanco.sakai at gmail.com> escribió:

> Hi, I must agree with Sam too:
>     
>    In the Spanish part, as "es_ES" is constantly maintained to be at
> 100% translated, I think it's the best option as basis for the spanish
> language.  (As now it is, because we make a copy to "es" from the
> "es_ES" each time we export translations)         
>     Spanish has a lot of differences between countries, of course, but
> I'm sure most people from any spanish speaking country will prefer to
> view a "Spanish from Spain" word as default when they don't have their
> locale customization, than and english one.  If it were different, for
> instance, Spanish from Colombia or México were the 100% translated and
> es_ES were a empty trasnslation, I would prefer to have the "es_CO" or
> "es_MX" as basis and then work in the es_ES customization.  The main
> idea here is not to have words in english.
>      
>     I'm not french neither from Canada, so I don't really know the
> french question but If I were french speaker (from Luxembourg or from
> Canada) surely I'll prefer to have the "French from France" as basis
> than the english and then start to work on my locale customization.
>
>     
>    Diego
>
>
>
>    2014-07-12 11:00 GMT+02:00 Gao Jun <gaojun at fudan.edu.cn>:
>
>> May be this is tradeoff between end-users and translators.
>>
>> To Chinese, there are four locales defined in Java 7. They are
>> zh_CN(Mainland China), zh_TW(Taiwan), zh_HK(Hongkong),
>> zh_SG(Singapore). As far as I know, zh_CN and zh_SG are similar to each
>> other (Simplified Chinese), while zh_TW and zh_HK are similar to each
>> other (Traditional Chinese).
>>
>> Many people can read both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese
>> while only some people can write both of them. So, I think many
>> Chinese-speaking Sakai user will prefer to see
>> (Simplified/Tranditional)Chinese instead of English. Since Sakai is
>> mostly used in higher education, I think even more end-users can read
>> both Simplified and Tranditional Chinese.
>>
>> But still not all of the people can read both styles. And, English
>> education is very common in Chinese-speaking area, in universities and
>> colleges, almost all Sakai end-user can read English. Frankly speaking,
>> may be some users will prefer English to the other Chinese style, and
>> even some of them can only read English.
>>
>> So, in the Chinese case, to end-users, having a default zh language may
>> be a good idea to many users, not having a default zh language may be a
>> 'worse' idea but can fit 'more' users.
>>
>> In the other hand, as the translator of most zh_CN properties files. I
>> think having a default zh language is not necessary. It's very easy to
>> copy zh_CN files to zh_SG, or zh_TW to zh_HK. Translator can just edit
>> the file to change what they need.
>>
>> And while I want to check if I have translated 'all' properties file,
>> it's easy to see how long to go 100% translated with the l10n-stats
>> tool.
>>
>> Above is the situation of Chinese, hope these information will help.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Gao Jun
>>
>> 于 2014年07月11日 22:23, Matthew Jones 写道:
>>
>>> I would agree with Sam,                     
>>>           There are 5 countries that have a French specific locale
>>> setting and all are in Europe; Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
>>> [1] I'd have to guess all of those countries would take fr_FR over
>>> fr_CA but if they took fr_FR as it was, they would also have to accept
>>> date formatting (which may or may not be the same) as well as currency
>>> and other internal formatting. Or they'd have to take their fr_*
>>> setting and have it fall back to English since there is no fr
>>> available instead. 
>>>            
>>>           This was the problem with es, but it was worse because there
>>> are 20 es countries, and they for sure have more non language
>>> variations and significantly more overlap with (most likely) es_ES. I
>>> think the same could be said for Arabic as well. 
>>>            
>>>           I don't have any investment in French specifically either
>>> (as I did with Spanish), and maybe nobody from the French speaking
>>> areas of Belgium or Switzerland want to run Sakai, but if I was
>>> voting, I'd say that fr_FR is a better fallback for everyone (fr_CA)
>>> included that English. And to accomplish that without an fr fallback
>>> seemed to be a technical challenge. I'm personally happy with fr_FR
>>> being the default Sakai fr language. Just as I'm happy with en_US
>>> being the default Sakai en language. (And es_ES being the default
>>> Sakai es language)
>>>            
>>>           I think those are just decisions that need to be made
>>> without trying to compromise on minimum coverage. Maximum coverage
>>> with individual overrides is easier. ;)
>>>                       
>>>
>>>
[1] http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/javase7locales-334809.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>           On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Sam Ottenhoff
>>> <ottenhoff at longsight.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> French from Canada and France a really different, using one as
>>>>> default for the other would, in my opinion, be a mistake.
>>>>
>>>>                  
>>>>                  
>>>>
>>>>                Absolutely.  So my next question would be, what about
>>>> French from Belgium and French from Switzerland?  I assume they would
>>>> want to use fr_FR as a base with a few country-specific overrides, no?
>>>>                                 
>>>>                  
>>>>
>>>>> When there was only fr_CA available in Sakai, my users were
>>>>> uncomfortable with it. I suppose it would be the same the other way
>>>>> around if fr_FR becomes the default. I would gladly create a shared
>>>>> fr locale if I had fr_CA owners who could meet with the fr_FR team
>>>>> to agree on shared part of the translation, but none are available
>>>>> AFAICT.
>>>>
>>>>                  
>>>>
>>>>                I don't understand why fr_CA owners need to be
>>>> involved at all.  If fr_CA doesn't keep their translation up to date,
>>>> they get English text as a fallback currently, right?  Is fr_CA so
>>>> distinct that English text is a better fallback than French?
>>>>                 
>>>>                I don't have investment in this area.  It just seems
>>>> like this is bad policy.
>>>>                 
>>>>                --Sam
>>>>                 
>>>>                 
>>>
>>>           
>>>
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>
>     
> --
>        ***************************************
>     DIEGO DEL BLANCO OROBITG
>          Spain & LATAM Regional Manager (/ANI Sakai/)
>      Apereo LATAM Representative (/Apereo Foundation/)
>             
>       P: (+34) 653 683 489
>              E: ddelblanco at anisakai.com
>
>      Sk: ddelblanco.ani
>      ***************************************
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