Proposal for a subtag registration (fr-2004-ORTOGRAF or fr-ortograf ?)

GerardM gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Sat Dec 15 10:25:32 CET 2007


Hoi,
Given that Wikipedia is mentioned. The fact that a Wikpedia project is small
does not bother us that much, what bothers us is when it is hard for people
to read a Wikipedia in their language. So we currently insist on a
localisation that is sufficient for readers of that language prior to
launching a new project. This same requirement exists when a new project in
an existing language wants to start.

When you look at the localisation statistics for MediaWiki, you will notice
that many languages are not properly localised in the MediaWiki software, as
a consequence the MediaWiki software is less useful in those languages in
other projects. You will notice that many of the languages that are newly
created or are in the process of being approved, the localisation statistics
are quite good. For the other languages a lot of effort goes into prodding
people to help localise their language, Wolof for instance is now at 35%
while still a really small project.

In the localisatons we aim for the combination language and script. We
absolutely welcome localisations in any language, any script. MediaWiki
gains its relevance by being universally applicable not by only catering to
the "big" languages.

Thanks,
    Gerard

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation_statistics
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias

On Dec 15, 2007 1:33 AM, David Starner <prosfilaes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Dec 14, 2007 12:48 PM, Mario Périard <mario_periard at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >  For instance, if I want to translate Ubuntu (the Linux distribution) in
> > order to allowed people to choose "Ortograf alternativ' during the
> install
> > or update process of Ubuntu.
> >  To do this I have to create a new translation team (directory):
> > https://launchpad.net/ubuntu
>
> No; you just need that to be an official translator. It's all open
> source to do with as you will.
>
> >  I don't know the technical or political reasons behind that, but a
> language
> > code is often required to be a part of a translation sortware project.
>
> Because computers need a way to label languages unambiguously and
> consistently. That's why language codes were invented.
>
> And the political reason is that there's always people coming up
> wanting to translate major projects in Pig Latin, Klingon, Toki Pona,
> their dialect of a standard language, etc. A language code is at least
> one line of resistance against frivolous projects that no one will
> really use and that will probably be abandoned.
>
> Karen_Broome at spe.sony.com wrote:
> > Reviewing the Ubuntu site, they are not complying with ISO 639-1 or
> > ISO 639-2 today and it appears they may already be assigning
> non-standard codes.
>
> If you check out the links, all the apparently non-standard codes are
> all language-country combinations.
>
> > Or possibly they already use RFC 3066 or 4646 and would accept
> > a private-use variant code.
>
> That does not follow. First, I think right now they're probably using
> the language-country subset. Secondly, private-use codes may be
> forbidden as a matter of policy.
>
> Honestly, I think the major projects like GNOME and Ubuntu are
> overloaded on language translations; looking at the Ubuntu list sorted
> by completeness, I count 56 languages that have not translated even
> 700 strings out 370,700. There are dozens of Wikipedias with a few
> dozen tiny articles. They don't need more translations that few people
> would use even if they were complete. So forbidding private-use codes
> makes perfect sense.
>
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