[sword-devel] Localised language names for third party modules?

[Chris Little]

On 12/22/2009 5:09 AM, David Haslam wrote:
>
> Front-end applications such as Xiphos display localized language names as
> branches in the module manager.
>
> However, not all third party created modules stick to the CrossWire
> developers' guideline to use the two letter language code, when both two
> letter and three letter codes are defined in ISO-639.

This is not CrossWire's guideline, this is IETF's BCP, which we follow. 
ONLY the two-letter code is permitted. In the cases of both two- and 
three-letter codes existing for a language, the three-letter codes are 
explicitly undefined and should not be used, under any circumstances. To 
quote RFC 4646:

    Note: For languages that have both an ISO 639-1 two-character code
    and an ISO 639-2 three-character code, only the ISO 639-1 two-
    character code is defined in the IANA registry.

> Example:
>
> One of the modules from the  http://www.wordofgod.in/ Word of God  team in
> India is the Tamil Bible.
>
> ISO-639-1 code for Tamil is "ta"
> ISO-639-2 code for Tamil is "tam"
> ISO-639-3 code for Tamil is "tam"
>
> The language code in tamil.conf is "tam".
>
> This causes Xiphos to display it as an English language name "Tamil" rather
> than a localized one, "தமிழ்".
>
> Should Xiphos be made sufficiently versatile to cope with such third party
> deviations from our guidelines?
>
> Or should we suggest to brother Yesudas Solomon to change the conf file to
> use the two letter code?

Yes, anyone employing non-standard codes, including ISO 639-2/3 codes 
when a 639-1 code is available, should be asked to correct those codes.

If Karl wants to support non-standard codes within Xiphos on a 
case-by-case basis, that's his prerogative, but these will absolutely 
not be supported in the master locale list 
(https://crosswire.org/svn/sword-tools/trunk/locales/).

--Chris