Variant subtag proposal: Høgnorsk variety ofNorwegian

[Leif Halvard Silli]

Michael Everson, Sun, 3 Jan 2010 17:19:01 +0000:
> On 3 Jan 2010, at 16:34, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> 
>> If it does cover compatibility, then interoperability was behind  
>> what I said. 'nn-hognorsk' doesn't work in Mac OS X 10.4.
> 
> Doesn't "work" in the entire OS? That does not make any sense to me.
> 
> Maybe "nn" isn't specified in localization strings, but you're not  
> going to be localizing Tiger into Høgnorsk, are you?

I have localized an application that runs on 10.3.9. Even on 10.1.5, in 
one version. 

>> I believe 'no-hognorsk' would work.
> 
> "Work"? Hvad skal det betyde? Virke? Fungere? Gå? Drive? Udnytte? Løse?

If a locale is supported by OS X, then it has some benefits to the 
user. This  is what I call "it works". If you use an app which comes in 
a locale that isn't supported by the OS, then the app will probably 
launch in English or another fallback language.  Therefore it is 
important to use a locale that doesn't cause fallback. As a localizer I 
want users to become aware of my localization.

In OS X you can select a certain language as your user interface 
language - e.g. you could select "Swedish". Subsequently, when you 
launch an application that includes support for the locale you selected 
for the entire system, then that application will launch in the 
matching language interface - in this case it would launch in Swedish. 
If the application you launched was a Web browser, the "it works" would 
also include that the browser signals to Web serves that it prefers 
'sv' content.

So, if I select Norwegian as my locale - in the user prefs of OS X, 
then I expect that any application launches in Norwegian - if a 
Norwegian localization is available. 

If I use 'no-hognorsk', then I believe the app is covered by the 'no' 
umbrella and would thus 'work' the way I described above.

One important criteria for 'work' is that it 'just works' when the 
users starts the applications. The users should not have to first 
fiddle with the preferences of the entire system, if that can be 
avoided.

Some applications seal themselves more off from the locale system of OS 
X  - the Mozilla apps is one example. They can be 
localized/internationalized with less focus on how OS X itself works. 
Mozilla apps also doesn't include more than one localization in the 
same application package - this too makes Mozilla apps more robust 
against unwanted fallback - which again means that you can tag the 
localization more correctly. But localizers are usually not the ones to 
decide how apps are packaged.

The oldest app I localized came in Bokmål, Nynorsk and Høgnorsk. It 
used these locale tags: 'nb_NO', 'no_NO' and 'Norwegian'. (Perhaps I 
could have used 'no' instead of 'Norwegian'.)
-- 
leif halvard silli