Re: release notes

["Theppitak Karoonboonyanan" <thep linux thai net>]

On 3/8/06, Davyd Madeley <davyd madeley id au> wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-06 at 14:43 +0100, Danilo Šegan wrote:
>
> > I've added rni18n.xml now: commentary might need changing :)

I don't want to start another round of argument about speakers
population. But in the last release, when Thai was first listed
as a supported language, the most frequently commented point
in my translation was the population of Thai speakers, which
was very much lower than what people usually accept.
The number of 20 millions instead of 65 millions had created
flames in many forums, and the only way to stop it is to silently
translate 20 millions into 65 millions. :-/

In my vague memory, the reference for this statistics was from
a survey conducted by SIL (sorry if I'm wrong), which seemed
to distinguish several Thai dialects as different languages.
But the fact is that the Thai "script" is commonly used by all
dialects, no matter what they are spoken. And another fact
is that those dialects are not used in official documents,
including computer programs. The "Central Thai" is just
used throughout the country by 65 millions people.

In short, the ethnic survey seems to be a linguistic research
that reflects the native dialects, not the use of "official
languages".

Could you please consider changing the number for Thai?
Or if this would break the principle, and exceptional
measurements would cause confusion, as it had been
the reason that barred out the change for some languages
in last release, should  the population just be removed to
avoid controversy in local communities?

Thanks,
--
Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
http://linux.thai.net/~thep/