Re: translations Digest, Vol 27, Issue 12

[Amed Çeko Jiyan]

Hi again,
- As Frederik says, we use "kmr" for Kurmanji and "ckb" for Sorani. We use these codes in GNOME and some other projects.
- you are right, "ku" is not a country code. We can not ku_KU in any projects. SO we use ku_TR for some projects. Why projects need country code? Do countries support projects? No. It would be great to use only language codes for all projects.

As you see from Kurdish Google, iso639 2 makes problems for us. It would be better to use "kmr" and "ckb"

That is good Drupal will use iso639 3.

Amed

On Jan 19, 2008 2:00 PM, <translations-request@...> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: language code problem (for kurdish) ( G?bor Hojtsy )
  2. Re: language code problem (for kurdish)
     (Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:52:15 +0100
From: " G?bor Hojtsy " <gabor@...>
Subject: Re: [translations] language code problem (for kurdish)
To: "A list for translators" <translations@...>
Message-ID:
       < 86ca3ccb0801180552u381bdd54v557cf8fc2f722da1@...>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hey Amed,

On Jan 18, 2008 2:00 AM, Amed ?eko Jiyan < amedcj@...> wrote:

> I would translate Drupal into Kurdish (Kurmanc?). I got cvs account and i
> created a project named Kurdish Kurmanc?. I would use ku_KU as language code
> for Kurmanc?, but i got that message "- We normally use iso639 2 letter
> language codes for Drupal, ie for Kurdish it is ku" all of otehr projects
> -like Mozilla Firefox, Google- would we use ku as language code. That is
> because they don't know any thing about Kurdish language(s). Kurdish is a
> languages family as Scandinavian.
> After i start to translate Drupal into Kurdish Kurmanc?, some other friends
> started to translate into Kurdish Soran?. We are translating Drupal into two
> languages but we have one language code (ku). will one of us stop to
> translating Drupal because that problem? No, i don't think so. I have
> allready created ku, ku_KU, so_KU in CVS directory.

> I would Drupal will let us to use ku_KU and so_Ku as languages codes.
>
> *Maybe you would see that big mistake : http://www.google.com/intl/ku/
> That is Kurdish page of Google. When you open that page, you will some some
> thing in latin letters (Kurmanc?) and some other things in arabic letters
> (Soran?). I hope Drupal will not fall in same mistake.

Well, Drupal 5 and before uses the ISO 639 language codes. With Drupal
6, we are migrating to the RFC 4646 codes, which supersede the ISO 639
codes as far as W3C directions go.
( http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4646.txt) It is important to choose
interoperable language codes, because when browsers send what is their
preferred language, Drupal can only choose the right one for display,
if the browser and Drupal use the same format. So we try to follow
standards.

I looked into the registry for information on how this is handled
there: http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry . Looks
like the IANA does not "know about" (to borrow your words) Kurmanc? or
Soran? either. May it be that there are some other / alternate names
for these variants, which are registered there?

It would be great to do this to the letter of the standards, so I'd
ask you to collaborate and think this through first :)

Gabor


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:34:20 +0100
From: "Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen" <freso.dk@...>
Subject: Re: [translations] language code problem (for kurdish)
To: "A list for translators" < translations@...>
Message-ID:
       <5ac9cdd10801181234o4aac30edtfe4c46665a0c0a73@...>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

2008/1/18, Amed ?eko Jiyan <amedcj@...>:
>[...] That is
>because they don't know any thing about Kurdish language(s). Kurdish is a
>languages family as Scandinavian.
>After i start to translate Drupal into Kurdish Kurmanc?, some other friends
>started to translate into Kurdish Soran?. We are translating Drupal into two
>languages but we have one language code (ku). [...]

So there is no language "Kurdish"? According to Wikipedia, Kurdish is
considered by some to be in three parts (Northern (Kurmanji), Central
(Sorani), and Southern (Zaza-Gorani)), although this is also a topic
of linguistic debate.[1] However, as I'm very much *for* spreading
both languages and dialects, I'd say: Just use the ISO 639-3 codes!
"kmr" for Kurmanji and "ckb" for Sorani.

(By the way, I only investigated this as I am Scandinavian meself
(Danish, to be exact)... >_>)

>[...] I have
>allready created ku, ku_KU, so_KU in CVS directory.
>I would Drupal will let us to use ku_KU and so_Ku as languages codes.

so_KU would mean "Somali, as spoken in KU" (apparently, there's no
"ku" country code[2]). I'm pretty sure this is not your intention. :)
Again, I'd say: Go with the ISO 639-3 codes I listed above.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_language#Dialects
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2
--
Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen <http://freso.dk/>


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End of translations Digest, Vol 27, Issue 12
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[Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen]

2008/1/19, Amed Çeko Jiyan <amedcj@...>:
>- As Frederik says, we use "kmr" for Kurmanji and "ckb" for Sorani. We use
>these codes in GNOME and some other projects.
>- you are right, "ku" is not a country code. We can not ku_KU in any
>projects. SO we use ku_TR for some projects. Why projects need country code?
>Do countries support projects? No. It would be great to use only language
>codes for all projects.

Languages don't support projects either - people who speak/read/write
them do. :p But country is good for stuff like Portuguese/Brazillian
Portuguese and American/English/Irish/Australian/Canadian/South
African/... English, where there's little argument that it's the same
language and just varying dialects. (A language/locale code can also
be written like en-GB-LONDON, if one wants to be that specific, though
there are some more guidelines with regards to that. Check RFC 4646,
which Gabor linked to, for more on this.)

A funny thing in relation to this is Norwegian, which has *3* ISO 639
2-letter codes: no, nb, and nn. The first (no) being generic
Norwegian, which could mean either nb or nn, and the two latter (nb
and nn) are, respectively, Bokmål and Nynorsk. But that's a completely
different situation that you should research for yourself. One of
those little amusing things in linguistics (IMHO). =)

>As you see from Kurdish Google, iso639 2 makes problems for us. It would be
>better to use "kmr" and "ckb"
>
>That is good Drupal will use iso639 3.

When I was inquiring about starting the Scots translation (which I
still have to get out of the vapor ware state...), I'm pretty sure I
was told it wouldn't be a problem to use "sco" (there isn't really any
alternative code I could use), so I'm guessing that it shouldn't be a
problem here either. But I am by no means an authority on Drupal's
relations to ISO 639 codes, so, yeah. :)

--
Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen <http://freso.dk/>
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[Gerhard Killesreiter]

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Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen schrieb:
> 2008/1/19, Amed Çeko Jiyan <amedcj@...>:

>> That is good Drupal will use iso639 3.
>
> When I was inquiring about starting the Scots translation (which I
> still have to get out of the vapor ware state...), I'm pretty sure I
> was told it wouldn't be a problem to use "sco" (there isn't really any
> alternative code I could use), so I'm guessing that it shouldn't be a
> problem here either. But I am by no means an authority on Drupal's
> relations to ISO 639 codes, so, yeah. :)

I think it makes sense to use these codes. However, I'd like to hear
from Goba if his locale work will support them (it IMHO should).

Cheers,
        Gerhard

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[Gábor Hojtsy-2]

On Jan 19, 2008 6:33 PM, Gerhard Killesreiter <gerhard@...> wrote:
> > When I was inquiring about starting the Scots translation (which I
> > still have to get out of the vapor ware state...), I'm pretty sure I
> > was told it wouldn't be a problem to use "sco" (there isn't really any
> > alternative code I could use), so I'm guessing that it shouldn't be a
> > problem here either. But I am by no means an authority on Drupal's
> > relations to ISO 639 codes, so, yeah. :)
>
> I think it makes sense to use these codes. However, I'd like to hear
> from Goba if his locale work will support them (it IMHO should).

The locale / language system works with whatever language codes. The
reasons we are trying to stick to one language code is that

 - when Google indexes your page, the language code you tell it (in
the HTML output of most themes) will be used to index the content
under that language
 - when a browser comes with language preferences, your site might
provide it with the specific language version it prefers (depending on
your configuration)... this only works if browsers and websites use
the same language

So generally, we try to advocate interoperability. That's why we
should look closer for options in the bounds of RCF464, which all
parties on the web scene should obey to. If there does not happen to
be any solution there, feel free to make exceptions, but be aware,
that search engine friendliness of content in your language, browser
language preferences, etc. will not work as expected.

I'd suggest looking at some browsers as well. Do they allow you to set
these languages in their preferences. There was a short note on
Firefox not supporting Kurdish languages properly in the thread
starter mail, so that might not be a good solution to look there :)

Gabor
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[Gábor Hojtsy-2]

On Jan 19, 2008 1:34 PM, Amed Çeko Jiyan <amedcj@...> wrote:

> - As Frederik says, we use "kmr" for Kurmanji and "ckb" for Sorani. We use
> these codes in GNOME and some other projects.
> - you are right, "ku" is not a country code. We can not ku_KU in any
> projects. SO we use ku_TR for some projects. Why projects need country code?
> Do countries support projects? No. It would be great to use only language
> codes for all projects.
>
> As you see from Kurdish Google, iso639 2 makes problems for us. It would be
> better to use "kmr" and "ckb"
>
> That is good Drupal will use iso639 3.

No, Drupal will not use ISO 639-3 if otherwise possible, please read
the other mails as well.

Gabor
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