[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Translation of Language Names et al.

[Betty Ing]

Proceeding on the path that we "display language names as natively as
possible," if we cannot find the native equivalent of a particular
source language name, is it preferable to leave the Translation column
empty or to copy what was in the Source Language column?

Also, where is our list of language names coming from? Would there be
existing translations somewhere since W3C has given guidance in this
direction? For example, the EU languages would be relatively easy to
find, but we have languages like Duala, spoken in Cameroon, which are
not necessarily national languages...

It comes down to the question of where to find references for
translating these lesser known language names.

Betty


On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 11:21:16 -0500
 Dan Scott <denials at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/3/5 Shawn Boyette <sboyette at esilibrary.com>:
> > Mike Rylander wrote:
> >
> >> As for what is best, I don't have a strong opinion because I am
> quite
> >> unilingual, but I will say that I would personally prefer to see
> the
> >> English name of languages displayed when I'm in the English
> interface.
> >>  Though my reasoning for that is selfish -- I just want to know
> what's
> >> available, for curiosity and testing.
> >
> > I think in a public terminal setting, the right thing to do is to
> display
> > language names as natively as possible -- it is impossible to know
> what
> > languages the next person to come along will speak.
> 
> Yes, this is the optimal approach. The W3C Internationalization
> Activity group uses this approach (see the "Translations" dropdown at
> http://www.w3.org/International/) and so does the ultimate arbiter of
> all Web design decisions, the Google (try http://www.google.cz/).
> 
> See in particular the "Translate Options" section of
> http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-navigation-select
> 
> > And, playing devil's advocate, what if you, monolingual English
> speaker, sat
> > down where someone had just been using the Japanese interface? How
> would you
> > know to pick ??? :)
> 
> Exactly.
> 
> -- 
> Dan Scott
> Laurentian University