Re: locale fallback option

["writeonce@midipix.org" <writeonce@midipix.org>]

On 07/26/2014 05:46 PM, Wermut wrote:
> Hi
>
> I just read, that you committed the basic locale code and about the
> musl firsts and thought of one thing that I would really like to see
> in a modern implementation.
>
> Problem: User A speaks a language "xyz" and lives in country "AB". So
> he will set the relevant locale environment vars to "xyz_AB". The
> problem is, that the language "xyz" is only spoken by a minority of
> people and the translation of the software in his language is often
> not complete or non existend. The result is, that user A will have to
> read the most strings in plain english, because this is the standard
> fallback. Because our user A is a member of a minority, he knows also
> the language "ts" which is also spoken in "AB", but he does not know
> any english.
>
> Status quo: Because the translation "xyz_AB" is not really complete,
> the user A gives up, is frustrated and sets his locale to "ts_AB".
>
> What really should be possible: User A sets the locale "xyz_AB" and
> sets "ts_AB" as a fallback for definitions and strings not available
> in "xyz_AB". Only if a string is not defined in either "xyz_AB" orgg
> "ts_AB", the hardcoded english string is shown to him.
>
> This would require, that the locale definition would accept something
> like LANG=xyz_AB:ts_AB
>
> I have worked in the past with some of these translation problems and
> worked with people from a lot of minorities that have all the same
> problem: The locale subsystem is just no flexible enough. I know that
> the implementation is potentially expensive, because you could end up
> in looking into a lot of physical files on your hard drive, but it
> would definitive be a big improvement and would help that almost
> distinguished language would be used more often in computer
> translations.
+1!
zg
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> Regards
>
> Kevin
>
>