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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: [kde-workspace/KDE/4.6] powerdevil/daemon: fix plural handling
From:       Chusslove Illich <caslav.ilic () gmx ! net>
Date:       2011-02-02 9:44:39
Message-ID: 201102021044.39663.caslav.ilic () gmx ! net
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>>> [: Andrew Coles :]
>>> [...] But, I guess my key point is: is there a language where the plural
>>> form applied to 'batteries' in: 'One of your batteries is faulty'
>>>
>>> ...depend on the number of batteries in the system? (assuming we know
>>> there are at least 2)
>>
>> [: Yuri Chornoivan :]
>> Yes, Belarusian, Bosnian, Croatian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian.
>>
>> http://unicode.org/repos/cldr-tmp/trunk/diff/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html
>
> [: Andrew Coles :]
> I thought that would be the case. So given we need *some* mechanism for
> switching in the appropriate form of the word Batteries, is it okay to
> use:
>
> i18ncp("%1 is the number of batteries in the system", "Your battery is
> faulty", "One of your batteries is faulty", numberOfBatteries);

There is some misunderstanding here. These should be two plain messages,
e.g:

  (numberOfBatteries == 1 ? i18n("Your battery is faulty.")
                          : i18n("One of your batteries is faulty."))

Plural forms are used only for texts that are same but for the grammatical
congruence due to the inserted number, and that's it.

Now, I understood Andrew's question as whether there is a language which
does not have a way to refer to undetermined number of things greater than
one? Firstly, I'm not aware of such a language, and it wouldn't make
practical sense. Secondly, if such a language would nevertheless exist,
every plain message containing a noun in plural would be broken for it.

-- 
Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић)

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