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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: translation gUI in Piemonteis
From:       Éric Bischoff <e.bischoff () noos ! fr>
Date:       2002-09-18 9:03:25
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On Wednesday 18 September 2002 10:32, Gaute Hvoslef Kvalnes wrote:
> >
> > Hey ! France does not recognize its dialects although they are widely
> > spoken... Should we prevent them from having Occitan, Breton, Occitan,
> > Basque, and so on ?
>
> France did, finally, sign the European charter on regional and minority
> languages back in 1999. This means giving official recognition and certain
> rights to certain minority languages in the country.

Ah, I was thinking they still refused to sign it. Forget what I've said, 
sorry.

> The definition of "dialect" is somewhat fuzzy, while a "minority language"
> is pretty well defined. Simply put, a dialect is a spoken variant of a
> language, while a minority language in most cases is officially recognized
> and has a written form. I believe KDE should welcome minority languages. A
> "fun project" should be easy to identify, but a minority language that is
> incidentally not officially recognized is harder.

Yes. The usual definition is that a dialect is a variant of a language 
(linguistic difference). Victor Hugo, on the contrary, said with irony that a 
dialect was a language that did not get official recognition (political 
difference).

With the linguistic definition, Sardinian and Basque ("su sardu" and 
"euskadi") are not dialects, but languages, while Alsacian and Bavarian are 
dialects.

> I believe these are sensible rules:
> - Refuse any obvious "fun projects", including most dialects.
> - Accept any others.

Yes. With have objective rules based on percentages in kdelibs and kdebase. 
That should be enough.

Still, what Andrea said was making sense. They are very few people in the 
Italian team, and spreading efforts would be a bit unproductive.

> When in doubt, accept it. Time will show if the translators are dedicated
> enough to keep up with the workload.

-- 
Éric Bischoff
KDE : ad expugnandum tabulam scriptoriam suam
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