Re: [Translation-i18n] Proposal for declinations in gettext

[Danilo Segan <dsegan gmx net>]

Veronica Loell wrote:

>>The current "solution" for these and similar problems are to put the 
>>work on programmers, and force them to create "complete" strings, so 
>>instead of the former three, one would have four strings:
>>msgid "Workspace %d"
>>msgid "Desktop %d"
>>msgid "Switch to workspace %d"
>>msgid "Switch to desktop %d"
>>    
>>
>
>As I said before, this is the only way that you would be able to translate
>to languages that do not use the same structure as the original one.
>  
>
Yes, I'm aware of that. But than it's just a "feature" that shouldn't be 
advertised to programmers as "complete solution", but rather a thing 
that would help translate many existent and badly constructed strings in 
many languages. I am not optimistic enough to even hope for a solution 
that would work for all languages.

>
>The main difference in English and Swedish is that in English you write
>compound words one at a time, in Swedish you would make them part of
>one word.
>
>email program = epostprogram
>world health organization = världshälsoorganisationen
>  
>
So yes, the composition which would be of the form:

msgid "program"
msgid "message"
msgid "email %s" # %s takes any of the above

would be very bad. But I have fortunately not seen many cases like this.

>English is a very isolating language which means that for example the
>definitive form of a word is presented by the means of an article. In
>Swedish an affix is used instead.
>
>the house = huset
>  
>
>in a truly agglutinating language such as Finnish the entire clause 
>"in my house" would be 1 word.
>  
>
That's similar to Serbian, though not exactly the same: "in house" would 
be translated with 2 words, but "to house" would be one. So, the words 
like "to", "in", "from", "by" and similar mostly disappear, and they 
"manifest" themselves through changes in the word (usually postfix).

Also, it seems that in Finish (from the quoted examples) only 
"noun-forms" agglutinate: no verb is ever involved, but rather nouns, 
adjectives, pronouns, etc. The thing I'm talking about works for the 
forms of "doing %s" or "doing with/in/to/from/by %s", where %s takes any 
of the "noun-forms" (expression consisting of nouns, adjectives,...). 
It's a simple problem, with simple solution.

>>Such feature would not get in the way to anyone who doesn't use it, but 
>>it would solve at least some problems. I guess that should be a reason 
>>enough, though if anything better can be imagined, I'd love to hear it.
>>    
>>
>
>Your feature would encourage the programmers to keep constructing the sort
>of strings that you present in the beginning. My point is that this will 
>make the programs impossible to translate for many target languages.
>  
>
The particular problem which made me think about this is the translation 
of a card game in Gnome. Since there are fifty-something cards, and I 
don't know how many different operations, this kind of "solution" would 
require more than thousand of similar strings in original program, which 
is unlikely that any programmer will do. The programmer is aware of the 
problem, but still considers it just a minor (perhaps major, but still 
not worth the change) nitpick, so my proposal would at least allow some 
(many?) languages to get the correct translation, besides English and 
other "simple" languages.

>It is a hassle to translate 10 strings instead of 5, but the solution is
>to create better tools, not to find shortcuts, imo, especially as the 
>shortcuts as is usual with shortcuts will make the job harder for anything
>that does not fit this pattern.
>  
>
Yes, I realize that and I agree with most of your arguments. Only, I'm 
trying to be "down-to-earth" (no insult intended, just, I'm talking 
about a practical problem and practical solution). It may be because I'm 
"egocentric", and only think about my own language, while you (being a 
professional) can take a much larger and better look.

Still, the particular "feature" would make job harder even for those 
whose languages do fit the pattern, but only so because they can now get 
*correct* translation for the cost of some extra effort. As a 
translator, I'm willing to pay that price. Unfortunately, it's clear 
that this kind of solution would do no good if it wasn't supported 
widely, and I'm looking for a solution that would work with most 
existing programs fairly well (I don't consider recompilation very bad).


Cheers,
Danilo