Translation of modifier keys

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

I just wanted to get a broader reaction on:

  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60590

  The keyboard shortcuts that are displayed in application menus, for example
  "Ctl+V", should have their individual key names translated.

  The reason is that keys are named differently on different keyboard
  layouts. For example "Ctl" is named "Strg" on German keyboards, "Shft"
  should be "Skift" in Swedish, etc. It would be great if all key names could
  be translated by translators in GTK+, and these translated key names used
  in the menus of GTK+ applications.

Currently, the keys always appear in the menu as "Shift", "Ctrl", 
and "Alt". Marking these for translation is the work of a minute,
but before doing that, I'd like to ask:

 - Is there are a standard for what appears on the keyboard for
   your locale? (I know in some places, symbols are used instead
   of words as well.)
  
 - Is there a danger of over-translation here? (That is, translating
   Alt to something that "means alt" rather than what appears on
   keyboards.)

 - What do other toolkits / operating systems do?

In theory, it would be possible to ask the Xkb extension of X what
actually appears on the keyboard, but in practice, that isn't going
to be properly configured in 99% of all cases.

Regards,
                                        Owen

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