Re: localization: What is a language

From: James McIninch (james.mcininch.nospam_at_comcast.net)
Date: 11/24/04

  • Next message: chino: "Re: Specialised Dual Boot - Two Drives" 
    Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 03:14:44 GMT

    <posted & mailed>

    David Barnsdale wrote:

    > Living as I do in Zagreb, I'm very
    > aware of how political is the
    > question "What is a language."
    >
    > I'd be interested to know:
    >
    > Who it
    > is who decides what gets the status
    > of a language for Linux.

    You do. Specifically, Linux itself is not localized, but the apps and
    documentation (and desktop environments, if you use them) are. Localization
    involves merely writing the appropriate string catalog or documentation
    files in the approriate language.

    The key is then in identifying what the language is. The International
    Standards Organization has a standard (ISO 639-2) for language codes that
    is used to identify a language.

    > Is there a list of all official languages
    > on the web?
    > (Alta Vista searches came up with nothing
    > for me)

    Check the US Library of Congress for a list
    ( http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2 ).

    > I've noticed that Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian
    > will all default to English if a program doesn't
    > provide for those languages. Is there a way
    > for a user who has, say, set the environment to
    > Serbian to request that if a program has
    > no Serbian support but does have Croatian then
    > it should run in Croatian?

    The default is to use the pseudolocale 'C' (not 'en', 'en_US', 'en_UK') as
    the locale if items in the requested locale are not available. There's no
    real cascade of locales (like you frequently see in web browsers).

    >
    > Thanks in advance
    > David 

    -- 
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