350637 - [tt, crh] Tatar: Firefox, Thunderbird, Mozilla, SeaMonkey, SunBird, Minimo

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Mozilla Localizations :: Registration & Management, defect)

Description

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; tr-TR; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060731 Ubuntu/dapper-security Firefox/1.5.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; tr-TR; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060731 Firefox/1.5.0.5

I'd like to localize the following:
Firefox, Thunderbird, Mozilla, SeaMonkey, SunBird, Minimo.

Please make the following l10n teams:
tt-RU-iqte (Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatar)
crh (Crimean Tatar)
tt-TR (Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatar in Turkey)

Notes: 
Tatar is a Turkic language. Crimean and Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatar are very close, dialects really, but have different language codes probably mostly for political reasons.
iqte is a modifier signifying a version of Latin-based Tatar alphabet. 
I assume that (a.) a modifier can only be used if a region code is used, and that (b.) a region code that is not in ISO 3166 would not be acceptable, and even if accepted that it would not be a good idea, as it might not be accepted elsewhere. Feedback on this would be welcome.

Reproducible: Always




Name: Reshat (Reþat) Sabiq
email: [e-mail]
web/group (might change later): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tatar-iqtelif-i18n/

Comment 1

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

We should strip this down, I guess.

As releasing any version of a language is a significant cost in terms of processes and communication, we'd rather focus new additions on each for themselves giving an additional value to users.

That said, I take it that tt as a locale name should suffice, using the cyrillic alphabet from my readings.

iqte seems to have a fuzzy status, reading through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatar_alphabet. I'm not totally convinced that it will bring a big value, and the -RU- in the language code seems to wrong as I read those pages to say that anything -RU- needs to be in cyrillic.
I may be convinced to take it if you can provide a case for it, but it's likely going to end up with something like tt-X-something, where I'm not sure if iqte or IQTElif would be better.
I haven't managed to turn up any information on this outside of wikipedia in a few minutes, I'll just see what comes.

Comment 2

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> We should strip this down, I guess.
> 
> As releasing any version of a language is a significant cost in terms of
> processes and communication, we'd rather focus new additions on each for
> themselves giving an additional value to users.
> 
Hi Alex, welcome to the wonderland that's been made out of Qazan Tatar language. ;)
I guess there are no questions about crh (bravo Crimean Tatars, and Ukraine, for making everything easy for the people: one great looking Latin alphabet), so i'll just try to provide some feedback on what's going on w/ tt.

> That said, I take it that tt as a locale name should suffice, using the
> cyrillic alphabet from my readings.
You'd think that should be the case, but in fact tt, unfortunately, in terms of alphabet, means a lot of things these days, and nothing very specific. You can find some Qazan Tatar sites and people and media in cyrillic, some in what can be called AntElif (Antalya Elifbasý), some in what can be called AntElifí (Antalya Elifbasý + í), some in AntElifK (Antalya Elifbasý + 2 Cyrillic and 1 Cyrillic-like letters), plus you have some people using something named ÝnElif (Ýnternet Elifbasý), and some proposing Yañalif from the times of the beginng of the 20th century (a mix of Latin and Cyrillic more or less).
The fact that there is a law saying you have to use Cyrillic alphabet doesn't stop almost anybody from using Latin alphabet. So in short, what we have is roughly this:
Cyrillic alphabet is "official", but illegitimate, as Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatars want a Latin alphabet.
There is a bunch of Latin alphabet versions, none of which has gained official status.

> 
> iqte seems to have a fuzzy status, reading through
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatar_alphabet. I'm not totally convinced that it
> will bring a big value, and the -RU- in the language code seems to wrong as I
> read those pages to say that anything -RU- needs to be in cyrillic.
I think one cannot conclude from this something like "anything -RU- needs to be cyrillic". After all, if there was a law saying, "You can't breathe thru your nose, only thru your mouse", it would not stop people from breathing naturally. The reality is, a whole bunch of alphabets, 1 cyrillic, and 6 Latin, plus hap-hazard writing in non-Extended-ASCII-only characters, is de-facto in use.
I played w/ the idea of having a region code more specific to Idil-Ural region where most "Eastern" Tatars live, like IU, but it's not in ISO 3166, and neither is something like QR for Crimea, so this doesn't appear to be an option, as G libc, for instance, appears to require region code to be standardized.

> I may be convinced to take it if you can provide a case for it, but it's likely
> going to end up with something like tt-X-something, where I'm not sure if iqte
> or IQTElif would be better.
> I haven't managed to turn up any information on this outside of wikipedia in a
> few minutes, I'll just see what comes.
> 

In an ideal world, one would be able to say tt-RU-Latn and be done w/ it. But as i tried to elaborate a little above, there are at least 6 different Latin alphabets in use. So Latn also doesn't cut it. Therefore, the iqte modifier to make it clear for everybody what Latin alphabet this is. Since the first 4 letters each stand for a word, IQTE would work too, although dotless i is a different vowel in most Qazan Tatar alphabets. I would rather use 4 rather than 7 letters for modifier, in case of possible, though unlikely dialect additions in the future (e.g., one might want to add Qasým, Miþer, or Síbír dialect). I also do not exclude a possibility of crh and tt codes merging in the future, which would provide some benefits in l10n: if something is not localized in tt-RU, tt-UA would match, as far as i know, in G libc. Which might require something like tt-RU-qrim, or tt-UA-qazn, and one might still need to use add an alphabet modifier. But that's probably a very remote future, which may never come.
One last thing i could say about iqte is that it ensures that Qazan Tatar orthography (writing) is as similar to Crimean Tatar, as it in fact is naturally.

In principle, we could use tt-TR w/ or w/o modifier, but tt-RU-iqte would be more accurate for Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatars living in Tatarstan, the rest of Idil-Ural region, and Siberia.

Comment 3

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

(In reply to comment #2)
I think i should also add some history for wider perspective here. In the last roughly 100 years, Tatars have been put thru 4 official alphabets (excluding all the alphabets that are in use now):
1. Traditional Arabic (since about 1000).
2. Modified Arabic (vowels that are usually optional (kind of like diacritics) harakats in Arabic were made into non-optional letters) (around 1920).
3. Latin alphabet (called Jaŋalif) w/ a good mix of Cyrillic-style letters (1928).
4. Cyrillic (1938 (Stalin)).

I personally look at this progression as an attempt to purposely damage the language. 
One could look at this as a monopoly (like Microsoft) making random rules.

Comment 4

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

It appears iqte or iqtelif is likely to require a delay. Perhaps we could get the following approved for the time being:
crh
tt-TR
.

Then we could either keep this bug open, or close this one and open another one just about tt-RU-iqte.

Comment 5

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> It appears iqte or iqtelif is likely to require a delay. Perhaps we could get
> the following approved for the time being:
> crh
> tt-TR
> .
> 
> Then we could either keep this bug open, or close this one and open another one
> just about tt-RU-iqte.

Actually, talking to some folks on Linux l10n communities, there doesn't appear to be any issues w/ using a unregistered modifier on Linux. I'd like to use a 5-letter modifier, however: tt@iqtel. My hopes that tt@iqtel will be accepted by mozilla soon have gone up too, hopefully not in vain. if tt@iqtel is approved, we can delay tt-TR, although it might still come up later.

Thanks.

Comment 6

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

I.e., let's get a decision on these first:

tt-RU-iqtel, or (if region is not required for modifier) tt-iqtel (Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatar)
crh (Crimean Tatar)

P.S. tt-TR might come up sometimes later.

Thanks.

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

On behalf of the Mozilla Project, I'd like to apologise for the delay in processing this request. We very much appreciate offers of help in localization.

If anyone reading this is still interested in helping to translate one or more Mozilla products into the language that this bug is about, please add a new comment to this bug to confirm your interest, saying again which products you would like to localize e.g., Firefox, Thunderbird. We will then make the necessary arrangements.

Comment 8

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

No response after a month; closing the bug as INCOMPLETE. If anyone reading
this is interested in localising Mozilla products into this language, we'd love
to hear from you! Please file a new bug about it.

Thanks,

Gerv