Re: New team for Tigrinya_Eritrea (ti_ER)

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

fre 2005-04-22 klockan 05:22 -0700 skrev Simon Mebrahtu:
> --- Christian Rose <menthos gnome org> wrote:
> > (Plase keep gnome-i18n gnome org cc:ed)

Again, please keep gnome-i18n gnome org cc:ed.


> > tor 2005-04-21 klockan 08:49 -0700 skrev Simon
> > Mebrahtu:
[...]
> > We don't have any team for ti_ET yet, and it doesn't
> > look likely that we
> > will ever have one, at least not in the near time.
> > So wouldn't it make
> > sense to just have one single Tigrinyan (ti) effort,
> > at least for now?
> > Then when someone steps up and says that he or she
> > is prepared to
> > translate into ti_ET, we can make the distinction,
> > but we keep it as one
> > effort until then.
> > 
> > Even if there are differences as you say, I assume
> > that many ti_ET users
> > would prefer having ti_ER translations, instead of
> > no translations at
> > all and the applications being shown in English. Am
> > I correct in my
> > assumption, or do ti_ET users actually prefer (and
> > understand) English
> > rather than ti_ER?
> > 
> > 
> > Christian
>
> I don't really understand what you want to say from
> your last e-mail. In my opinion, i think they prefer
> ti_ER rather than English or nothing at all because
> for example in my case I prefer the Amharic(Language
> widely spoken in Ethiopia, and I'm 75% comfortable
> with Amharic) Localized version of Gnome than the
> English version. 

Ok. The reason I asked is that if we only go for having 'ti_ER'
translations in CVS and calling them 'ti_ER.po', then those translations
would by default only be availiable to ti_ER users.

This means that while a ti_ER user would automatically get the nice
Tigrinyan translations you've produced, a ti_ET user would not get any
Tigrinyan translations at all, but rather be left with an untranslated
English desktop by default.

On the other hand, if we go for having 'ti' translations in CVS and
calling those translations 'ti.po', then those translations would by
default be automatically availiable to both ti_ER users and ti_ET users
and all other ti_* users.
This is a direct consequence of how the locale selection mechanism works
by default. It tries to find an exact locale match if possible, and if
that doesn't work, it tries to find a language match. So, for a user in
the ti_ET locale, the automatic translation selection process would work
(roughly) like this:


1. Try to find a 'ti_ET' translation. Is there one?

YES --> Use the 'ti_ET' translation. Done.

NO  -+
     |
     +->  2. Try to find a 'ti' translation. Is there one?

          YES --> Use the 'ti' translation. Done.

          NO  --> We couldn't find a suitable translation. Use
                  the default 'C' locale translation (i.e. no
                  translation at all and original English messages).
                  Done.


As you can see, the only possible way for ti_ET users to benefit from
Tigrinyan translations rather than an English-only interface is if we
call the translations 'ti' (rather than 'ti_ER') in CVS, at least as
long as we do not have seperate ti_ER and ti_ET translation efforts.


> Anyways I have already translated some files such as
> gnome-desktop, gnome-terminal, gnome-session,nautilus,
> ... so let me continue with it and if some one who
> wants to localize Gnome for ti_ET pops up in the
> middle, then we will deal with it. Even the Amharic
> localized gnome treats ti_ER and ti_ET differently, it
> comes with different IMs for ti_ER and ti_ET which
> both are based on the widely used IM, SERA-IM(System
> for Ethiopic Representation in ASCII). I have planned
> to provide a ti_ER dictionay for spelling check in the
> near future, at this there is no dictionay for ti_ER,
> and I it's impossible for ti_ER and ti_ET to share a
> dictionay.

If I understand you correctly, you're fine with having only a single
"Tigrinya" translation team in GNOME, at least as long as no one is
volunteering for a seperate ti_ET translation effort.

I'll send another seperate team announcement mail with some more
detailed instructions regarding your new Tigrinya translation team.


Christian