Re: Portuguese added as new translation component to Debian Edu Bullseye manual at hosted weblate
Hi José,
José Vieira schreef op do 11-03-2021 om 18:18 [+0000]:
> Hi Frans,
> > I've always wondered why there are the xx language codes if there are
> > also the xx-XX ones. I've always thought they're supposed to be used,
> > aren't they? But, what for?
> >
I don't really know either, but I think it is meant for general use when it
is believed that the existing regional differences within a language for
some reason or another are not of great importance. For example, because
the number of people that are using Dutch is very limited if you look at it
on a global scale, the countries in which Dutch is used have installed an
international language committee that strives to promote a uniform use of
the Dutch language. The result is that for Dutch it is standard to use the
language code nl, and that regionalized language codes such as nl_NL and
nl_BE are hardly used.
>
> Yes, Portuguese, just like English, Spanish, French, German etc. is just
> one language and as such can be understood in any Portuguese speaking
> country. However, there are variations in the use of the language, both
> spoken an written, from country to country just like what happens with
> the other languages. And people tend to dislike the variation they aren't
> used to, since it feels "unnatural". For instance, in quite a few cases
> pt-PT and pt-BR use different words for the same term in English - a
> "file" is translated as "ficheiro" in pt-PT and "arquivo" in pt-BR (both
> long established Portuguese words) and "mouse" has been translated to pt-
> PT (as "rato") and simply borrowed from English in pt-BR. There are also
> different expressions/idioms, etc.
> There is another aspect, though - orthography, particularly related to
> consecutive consonants. As result of the natural evolution of the
> language in each country, many words with consecutive consonants (like
> "actual" and "know") have lost their first of the two consonant sounds
> (and in many cases that consonant was dropped in the writing). But mostly
> it didn't happen with the same words in both countries - natural
> evolution runs by itself. Trying to avoid of this (there are other
> similar but less obvious issues), at a certain moment the Brazilian and
> Portuguese governments have decided to set a "common orthography" (in
> fact, for political reasons related to the status of the language in the
> UN and other IOs). And exactly because many of the dropped sounds weren't
> in the same words in both countries, the so called "common orthography"
> became more a "messy orthography" than a common one.
> On top of this, Angola and Mozambique, the two big Portuguese speaking
> countries in Africa, regarded all this as a Portuguese-Brazilian affair.
> Besides, they still have a large population with poor formal education
> (who would have a hard time adapting to orthography changes) and being
> developing countries probably have other priorities, including because of
> the spending a change of all school books, for instance, would imply.
> Hence, they've kept the Portuguese orthography that was in place prior to
> the change.
> Because of all this and of the poor quality of the orthographic
> agreement, even in Portugal (not sure about Brazil), many people,
> including scholars, keep using the previous rules.
> So, a long story just to tell you that users of pt-PT and pt-BR aren't
> very fond of using "unnaturally" written texts, and that the two big
> Portuguese speaking countries in Africa still follow the previous
> orthography rules, which made me think of using the "pt" locale to cater
> for them and the pt-PT for the new orthographic rules (these do not solve
> all the differences of the ficheiro/arquivo type and others regarding to
> pt-BR).
>
Thank you for this extensive explanation. This was very illustrative. Now I
understand better that it does make sense to make an extra translation of
the manual into Portuguese.
> >
>
> I can understand your concerns, of course, hence I'll leave it to you to
> decide whether you want to deal with an extra locale or not.
Not an extra locale was my concern, actually, but rather the workload for a
translator who has to maintain two translations. So, please go ahead.
> My intention is to keep updating my translations according to the
> evolution in the English originals, but this is not a promise, of course
> - no one can rule the future, not even his own.
Of course, I understand that. By the way, thank you very much for the hard
work you have already done in translating the Debian Edu manual.
Kind regards,
Frans Spiesschaert
Reply to: