Re: Definition of COUNTRY (Was: Resignation)
(Feel free to drop the -devel crosspost when replying)
Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
Le jeudi 6 Mai 2004 19:40, Roger So a écrit :
So theorectically you have six combinations here:
zh_CN@simplified zh_CN@traditional
zh_HK@simplified zh_HK@traditional
zh_TW@simplified zh_TW@traditional
Yes, but not exactly:
- There is only a single traditional glyph system (zh@traditional) for all
languages.
True; the @traditional was there for the sake of completeness.
- Cantonese may also be written in European letters.
No. This is like saying Japanese can be written in English letters, or
French in IPA.
For compatibility reasons, we may keep the usual locales used in GNU/Linux
zh_CN, zh_TW, zh_HK). But there is no reason to use regions to define what
are actually written scripts and glyphs systems:
- "zh_CN Simplified glyph, mostly used in mainland China"
- "zh_TW Traditional glyph, mostly used in Taiwan" (no reference to Region of
Contry, people can choose based on their belief)
- "zh_HK Written Cantonese, mostly used in Hong-Kong"
The trouble is that because the actual language used have subtle
differences depending on the region, practically for l10n you need three
different translations for the different regions anyway. Same situation
as French vs Quebecois (though I suspect the difference between zh_CN
and zh_HK is not as great).
Chinese evolved quite quickly during the last century, a period where
unfortunately people in the 3 regions did not talk to each other much,
and thus the language evolved in separate ways.
Note that there are other Chinese-speaking regions in the world, such as
zh_MO and zh_SG; however I do not know enough about them.
I am getting in contact with Chinese friends being part of the PostgreSQL
translation project and will get back to you shortly.
I'll also try to get my friends to give an opinion on this.
Roger
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