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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: KDE in latin
From:       Thomas Diehl <thd () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-05-24 16:48:36
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Am Freitag, 24. Mai 2002 16:51 schrieb Rob Kaper:

> On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 09:20:35AM -0700, John Knight wrote:
> > I second Malcom's opinion there, as Latin is at least still spoken in
> > Vatican City and is learnt by university students for langauge reasons,
> > I'd be willing to make an allowance for it if I were the person running
> > the show.

As stated before, Latin will be included if the team can really mobilize the 
ressources to get their translation in a releasable shape. (See eg  
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-i18n-doc&m=101707813726133&w=2)
So far, it looks as if they may be able to pull this off.

> Klingon is also studied at universities for language reasons.

Come on you are not really comparing Klingon to Latin, do you? Klingon may 
have some interest as a linguistic experiment (I won't discuss how much 
really) but from what I see on the net it is almost exclusively a Trekkie 
thing and by no means a basic requirement for being a Trekkie. I see no 
indication that this is going to change in the future either. In comparison, 
Latin is the very basis of some of the biggest existing languages, is still 
taught to millions of pupils and students all over the world and -- people 
may like it or not -- it is one of the main roots of western culture as a 
whole. Also the translation the Latin team is doing here will probably be 
actually used by them, and I mean seriously.

A Latin translation is surely a borderline case for KDE but as long at it is 
the only item in this class I don't see the necessity for opening an extra 
module for "ancient languages" or some such. If we get Sanskrit, Ancient 
Greek, or Anglo-Saxon one day we should probably reconsider.

> Anyway, to end this discussion: we'll work in kdenonbeta for now and once
> we have a significant amount translated I will bring up this topic again. I
> believe that once a fair share has been translated the arguments for
> inclusion become a lot strong and some of the arguments against will have
> been dismissed.

Just to recap the reasons for the rejection:

*  Like your stated yourself: Klingon is not meant for distribution any time 
soon which is the very basis for even _thinking_ about inclusion of any 
language in the first place

*  The minimum requirement for inclusion in _releases_ are fully translated 
kdelibs.po + desktop.po + ~75% of kdebase (okay, there are exceptions but 
they should offer a good reason why to include them anyway)

*  KDE is based on Unicode. The Klingon glyphs were rejected for inclusion. So 
there's no foreseeable end to your "roman" alphabet workaround. Which means 
that even as a linguistic experiment it will always remain half-baked.

*  It is at least worth a serious thought whether the inclusion of Klingon 
would make us look so silly as to give us a real image problem with a lot of 
users. If we accept Klingon why not "Redneck Language"? (No joke, see 
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-i18n-doc&m=94736760407863&w=2) Or any other 
supposedly "funny" dialect?

Nothing against fun projects (after all AMOR is still one of my personal 
favorites in KDE) but I'd rather keep them away from the main modules. And, 
no, I don't think you can compare that to the worldwide Esperanto community, 
either.

Regards,

Thomas




-- 
KDE translation: http://i18n.kde.org
Deutsche KDE-Uebersetzung: http://i18n.kde.org/teams/de
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