COUNTRY: proposal of a solution

[Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com>]

Dear all,

The problem here is to find a solution for the buggy display of the Chinese 
locales (zh_TW, zh_HK and zh_CN) in GNU/Linux Debian.

1) zh_HK

zh_HK refers to the Cantonese language spoken in Hong-Kong and Singapore, as 
opposed to Mandarin, the language of continental China. Cantonese can be 
written in traditional glyphs or in phonetic signs.

2) zh_TW and zh_CN

 zh_TW and zh_CN are used as a reference to Traditional Chinese and Simplified 
Chinese. Obviously, the notations carry political and geographical ideas, 
which have little to do with the reality of glyphs.

3) Freedom of choice

Each Chinese Debian user should be able to choose between either locale, 
depending on their knowledge of:
- the language (Mandarin or Cantonese),
- the written glyphs (simplified or traditional).

3) Proposal

It may be interesting to use:
- zh_CN: "Simplified Chinese"
- zh_TW: "Traditional Chinese"
- zh_HK: "Cantonese"

Maybe that one billion people deserve some tweaking to display someting 
different. It will not break the Debian installer to remove the notion of 
location in the case of China. After all, China was created 2000 years BC. 
Long before ISO and GNU/Linux Debian.

4) Now, let's ask the Chinese

Disclaimer: I am not a specialist.

Jean-Michel