Re: New team for Sinhala (si)

[harshula <hash jayasolutions cjb net>]

On Sun, 2004-10-17 at 02:04, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-10-15 at 16:41, harshula wrote:
> > Having looked at your list, that's not really trivial is it? Perhaps we
> > can minimise the excess work by me explaining why the current ISO 639
> > entry is incorrect?
> 
> 
> 
> > 1) ISO 15924: http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924-codes.html
> > 
> > "Sinh 348 Sinhala singhalais Sinhala 2004-05-01"
> > 
> > This is a more recent standard, representing the script, which contains
> > the correct term for the Sinhala language.
> 
> This is the name of the script, and that is/may be different from the
> name of a language.

Hi Roozbeh,

The name of the language and the script are the same, namely "Sinhala".

You should also pay attention to the fact that it was added/amended on
2004-05-01. Which is quite recent.


> > Compare this to the older ISO
> > 639:
> > 
> > ISO 639: http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html
> > 
> > "Sinhalese singhalais sin si"
> > 
> > You will note that the French term, "singhalais" is identical in both
> > standards.
> 
> That doesn't necessarily mean anything. It may be the case the two
> English words "Sinhalese" and "Sinhala" both translate to the French
> word "singhalais".

Well, do they?


> > 2) Sri Lanka's Constitution:
> > http://www.constitution.gov.lk/presnt_const.htm
> > 
> > http://www.constitution.gov.lk/Conpdf/78chap04.pdf:
> > 
> > "Official languages 
> > 
> > 32. The official languages of the Republic shall be Sinhala and Tamil. 
> > 
> > National languages 
> > 
> > 33. The national languages of the Republic shall be Sinhala, Tamil and
> > English."
> 
> That doesn't mean much either. For example, in the Iranian constitution
> it is mentioned that all the official documents should be written in
> Persian language and *Persian script*. But there is nothing known as
> "Persian script" in  international circles. It's the same as the "Arabic
> script".

So what you are telling me is that the Iranian constitution *correctly*
refers to the "Persian" language. However, you assume that Sri Lanka's
constitution *incorrectly* refers to "Sinhala".

I would certainly hope the constitution of a country contains the
*correct* terminology for the official languages!

I was curious about what you said:

'there is nothing known as "Persian script" in  international circles'

So I did a quick search. It was interesting to note that Persians added
'letters' to the Arabic script because the Arabic script was missing
certain sounds:

http://www.geocities.com/sikmirza/arabic/arabic.html

"Persian Supplements to the Arabic Alphabet"

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Arabic_alphabet

"Arabic script is not used solely for writing Arabic, but for a variety
of languages. In each language it is used for, it has been modified to
fit the language's sound system. There are phonemes not found in Arabic,
but found in, for instance, Persian and Malay and Urdu - especially
since those three languages are not related to Arabic. For example, the
Arabic language lacks a "P" sounding letter, so many languages add their
own "P" in the script, though the symbol used may differ between
languages. These modifications tend to fall into groups; so all the
Indian and Turkic languages written in Arabic tend to use the Persian
modified letters, whereas West African languages tend to imitate those
of Ajami, and Indonesian ones those of Jawi. The script in which the
Persian modified letters are used, is called Perso-Arabic script by the
scholars."

Perhaps the above reason is why the Iranian constitution, justifiably,
refers to a Persian script?


> > 3) The SLSI (Sri Lanka Standards Institution):
> > http://www.nsf.ac.lk/slsi/ and ICTA (Information and Communication
> > Technology Agency of Sri Lanka): http://www.icta.lk and both in
> > agreement that the entry in ISO 639 is incorrect and are in the process
> > of getting it amended to "Sinhala".
> 
> I would love to see some links to some relevant documents.

So, the constitution of the country, ratified by the legislature, wasn't
official nor relevant enough for you, but a document written by someone
in the above two organisations would satisfy you?

Please, explicitly state what will satisfy you, and I will endeavour to
obtain it.

We, with the support of SLSI and ICTA, have recently applied for the ISO
639 to be amended to use "Sinhala". We'll keep the gnome-i18n group
updated on the status.

We'd like to minimise unnecessary additional work. I'm sure those that
would actually have to do the additional work would agree with me.


> > Hopefully, this maybe sufficient to avert the additional work by using
> > "Sinhalese" now and then having to change it to "Sinhala".
> 
> I guess we should go for Sinhalese now, and then switch to Sinhala if
> the standard got changes. Arbitrary decisions of translation teams on
> the English names of the languages has led to confusions. For example,
> for a long time people thought that there is a "Farsi" translation team
> for KDE, but not of GNOME. That would not have happened if the KDE
> translation team had used the ISO name, "Persian".

This is not applicable to our situation. Firstly, it's not an arbitrary
decision by the translation team. It is supported by the the SLSI, ICTA
and the Commissioner of Official Languages. Secondly, we are in the
process of getting ISO 639 amended.


> > What's you view?
> 
> I really believe we should stay with Sinhalese until someone announces a
> change. I recommend you contact the Unicode mailing list at
> <http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html#1> for some queries on
> how it can be changed, and if it is necessary to do the change. I would
> also appreciate me if you CC me in the discussions, so I may be able to
> help.

Actually, to amend the ISO 639 you need to use this form:

http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/iso639-2chform.html

Regards,
Harshula


> roozbeh
> 
>