[NTG-context] Re: How to Define a New Language

[Wolfgang Schuster <wolfgang.schuster.lists@gmail.com>]

ai2472206007@yeah.net schrieb am 24.05.2024 um 16:39:
> 3. In general, it is enough to distinguish between Chinese Simplified Chinese and Chinese Traditional.
> 
> Chinese has a large number of Chinese characters, therefore the fonts produced are generally divided into Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional. This causes Chinese Simplified Chinese fonts to fail to display Chinese Traditional.
> 
> In addition to the differences in fonts, Chinese mainland, Taiwan（china）, Hong Kong（china）, etc. use different punctuation marks, expressions, etc. For example, Chinese mainland mainly uses "", while Taiwan may use 「」 more often. and the difference between the two Chinese expressions, such as when using labeltext.

There are also differences regarding punctuation marks between official 
documents from the government and universities etc. but this is 
something which can be changed in the document style.

> While it's great to set up new languages at the system level, there is always the possibility that new languages will be added for one reason or another.
> 
> As far as Chinese is concerned, it has a very large number of dialects. We can't be fully integrated into the system. Opening up suitable interfaces to add new languages can reduce the cost of system maintenance.

The following should work with two main languages for simplified and 
traditional and local variant which fall back on both. The current 
chinese language can also be changed to the fallbacks.

\installlanguage [zh-hans] [..,..=..,..] % Simplified Chinese
\installlanguage [zh-hant] [..,..=..,..] % Traditional Chinese

\installlanguage [zh-cn] [zh-hans] % China
\installlanguage [zh-my] [zh-hans] % Malaysia
\installlanguage [zh-sg] [zh-hans] % Singapore

\installlanguage [zh-hk] [zh-hant] % Hong Kong
\installlanguage [zh-mo] [zh-hant] % Macau
\installlanguage [zh-tw] [zh-hant] % Taiwan

> As far as I know, the characters used (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional), the punctuation marks used (Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong), and the expressions used (Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong) are basically different between the dialects of Chinese. There is no hyphenation difference in any dialect.

I looked at the rules for linebreaking in chinese a while ago and even 
though there are a few guidelines there is no fixed list this. Many 
programs let you change the characters where a break is or isn't possible.

> As far as I am currently using, the context is not very well set for localization, and there are many words in lang-txt.lua that have not been translated into Chinese. I think that as an ordinary user, it is very dangerous to modify information at the system level.

You're free to fill the missing entries.

> Although, as a temporary alternative, we can use 'newif' or 'startmode' to add a new condition to accommodate both Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional in the same document. However, it would be nice to have support at the system level.
> 
> I don't know if I'm getting my point right. Because of the above, I used translation software to translate my thoughts.

To support both forms it is easier to have separate languages and 
linebreaking/font settings for each of them.

Wolfgang
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