486686 - [zh-HK] [Fx] New localization: Mandarin Chinese, Hong Kong

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Mozilla Localizations :: Registration & Management, defect)

Description

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; zh-TW; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) (zh-HK 3.1)
Build Identifier: 

I am a Hong Kong Firefox user. I would like to ask if Mozilla could create a Hong Kong version of Firefox.

Now, most of the Hong Kong users are using zh-TW version. But there are some annoying problem for Hong Kong user. Because the localized support is not suitable for Hong Kong user, such as the search plug-ins, the default charset and the news RSS Feed.
So, I created a forum version for the Hong Kong user to have the localized support when using Firefox.

Unfortunately, this forum version is not very popular at tall. Because most of the Hong Kong user wouldn't be participate in MozTW forum. And even most of the Firefox Hong Kong user don't know that there is an Firefox Hong Kong version is available!

So that, we hope that Mozilla could provide a Hong Kong version of Firefox. We have grouped up a team to develop Hong Kong version. They are:


      * L10n Manager: Me
      * Permanent consultant: hillwood
      * Impermanent consultant: tszkin & ktsps613
      * Promoter: Martin_Wong


And about the difference between Hong Kong and Taiwan version, you can see below:

      * Change the default charset to Big5-HKSCS and not Big5. And auto change all the Big5 charset web page to Big5-HKSCS.
      * The search plug-ins all change to Hong Kong local search. (They are: Google Hong Kong, Yahoo! Hong Kong, Yahoo! Dictionary, Yahoo! Knowledge, Wikipedia, ebay Hong Kong, Facebook Hong Kong & Youtube Hong Kong.
      * The news RSS Feed, we hope to change to Google Hong Kong News.
      * I changed some of the local settings in about:config, such as keyword.url.
      * With some international web page, I changed the display order to zh-HK→zh-TW→zh-CN→en-US.
      * A MozTW member suggest to add a sign: zh-yue=zh-HK in langGroups.properties to have a better support of Cantonese web page.
      * And I also changed some wordings that different form zh-TW version in Hong Kong.



But before creating Hong Kong version, there is two bugs we have to fix first. Firstly, if we change the user agent to zh-HK in Firefox, the extension locale would be fall back to zh-CN if there are no zh-HK locale. It is truly not suitable for Hong Kong user, we have to change it to zh-HK→zh-TW→zh-CN→en-US. If this bug can not be fixed, we can not create a Hong Kong version that is exactly suitable for Hong Kong user. Because it can really attract Hong Kong user to use Firefox, I think we should provide a nightly build of Hong Kong version in ftp.mozilla before this bug has been fixed. For more information, please refer to Bugzilla (Bug ID: 288670).

Otherwise, if the request of creating Hong Kong version has been accepted, we would suggest the words of showing in the Firefox download page. We would like that the English locale showing could be "Chinese Traditional (Hong Kong)" and the local name could be "繁體中文（香港）".

I would be grateful if the Hong Kong version of Firefox could be created during Firefox 3.1 release.



Reproducible: Always




I have translated the langpack of zh-HK, you can download here.
 http://cid-2c00fd314c4a43fd.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Firefox%20%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E7%89%88/firefox-3.5b4pre.zh-HK.langpack.xpi

Comment 1

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

I commented in bug 288670, that's not trivial.

As for this request, could you point out the actual translation differences between zh-TW and your proposed zh-HK? I'm rather interested in keeping the amount of forked work to a minimum to make this a healthy effort.

Comment 2

[Po-chiang Chao [:bobchao]]

Not in zh-HK team, but have some opinion: I don't think there exists much difference between zh-TW and zh-HK "UI translation". However, as 余弘志 said, most of the difference related on the default search plugin, bookmarks, and other default setting -- take search plugin for example, zh-HK users have to remove some of the default search plugin because they don't, or even can't, use the service since Firefox 3 released, that makes no sense.

So actually, I don't think they should "translate" the UI themself. Just copy the zh-TW version, select the proper services for zh-HK, then it's done.

Comment 3

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

If we get to an agreement on that, we should find a technical solution to only copy-and-patch. Everything else is just gonna burn everyone's resources.

I have a few ideas on how to actually copy-and-patch, the more challenging part is how to create a release process for that.

Comment 4

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

I agree the opinion of Bob Chao, but some things I would like to add.

Actually, the localized langpack files are not just simply copy-and-patch. The L10n manager of zh-HK still has to edit some of the file in the langpack of zh-TW. But the language of zh-HK is based on zh-TW, because Hong Kong and Taiwan both use Traditional Chinese.

Although we are using the some language, our culture are deeply different. So, there are some words should be revise to make it suitable for Hong Kong user. About the search plug-ins and the other default settings, they are much trouble for Hong Kong user. For example, when my friend Franky started to use Firefox, he got a big trouble about the search plug-in, the keyword url of the awesome bar and the RSS news! He is not a developer or an IT expert, so he didn't know how to replace the zh-TW localized resourse to zh-HK. That makes the common computer uses often give up Firefox. Therefore, Firefox become not popular in Hong Kong.

If we provide a Hong Kong version of Firefox, it solve all these problems, and if we could promote more, the common uses will started to use Firefox. So that it's necessary to create a Hong Kong version of Firefox.

Comment 5

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Zeroth, please don't make assumptions on bug priorities.

I need a real description of the differences between zh-TW and zh-HK bezond the general comments. What phrases do you actually change? The term "patch" can mean rather generic solutions, but I don't feel like investing into that before we have a concise description.

One way to get to that is to actually just clone the zh-TW repo and start working on a diff. A language pack won't suffice as source of information, neither for a derived localization nor for a completely different one.

To repeat, Firefox has over 5000 strings to localize, and while I understand the urge to get the productization right for Hong Kong, forking these 5000 strings isn't a step we're going to do without having a good reason.

Comment 6

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

The files I mainly changed are: region.properties, intl.properties (But they are about the info of the other localized things)
The phrases I changed are on aboutRobots.dtd (Because in Hong Kong, people won't use 機器人, they use 機械人. So, I changed it. In some of the files, there are some phrases about delete the browsing record and cookies, I changed the order of 隱私 to 私隱, because 私隱 is fit to Hong Kong grammar. 
In fonts.dtd, the discription of 正體中文 (繁體，香港) in zh-TW version is not using in Hong Kong, so I changed to the Hong Kong popular using word:繁體中文 (繁體，香港)

Comment 7

[Kwok Chun Ting]

You know, Hong Kong people is from Cantonese but Taiwan People is from Fujian People(or Taiwanese). Actually we use different languages.

Comment 8

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Kwok Chun Ting, your actions are violating our etiquette, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html. Please don't do that again, or we'll have to revoke your account.

Comment 10

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

> One way to get to that is to actually just clone the zh-TW repo and start
> working on a diff. A language pack won't suffice as source of information,
> neither for a derived localization nor for a completely different one.
Zeroth,
Would you working on a diff on the zh-TW repo and attach to this bug so we could all understand what *exactly* should be changed?

> To repeat, Firefox has over 5000 strings to localize, and while I understand
> the urge to get the productization right for Hong Kong, forking these 5000
> strings isn't a step we're going to do without having a good reason.
It possible to localize Firefox into Cantonese (yue) from ground up, while this bug is talking about creating a locale for a Hong Kong version that stays in (regular) Traditional Chinese.

The description from Kwok Chun Ting is not correct. Traditional/Simplify Chinese are considered written Mandarin, the spoken language of entire China since late 19 century. That's why both you and I can read it. Should Traditional Chinese written in Taiwanese (Hokken or Fujian), this bug will never exist and you guys will be on your own to localize 7000+ strings.

Comment 11

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> > One way to get to that is to actually just clone the zh-TW repo and start
> > working on a diff. A language pack won't suffice as source of information,
> > neither for a derived localization nor for a completely different one.
> Zeroth,
> Would you working on a diff on the zh-TW repo and attach to this bug so we
> could all understand what *exactly* should be changed?

Because the culture in Hong Kong and Taiwan are different, so some of the phrases have to be changed as well. But now Firefox Hong Kong users are mainly using zh-TW version, so if the language phrases just copy-and-patch, it still acceptable, and just not so convenience in reading the phrases.

(In reply to comment #10)
> > To repeat, Firefox has over 5000 strings to localize, and while I understand
> > the urge to get the productization right for Hong Kong, forking these 5000
> > strings isn't a step we're going to do without having a good reason.
> It possible to localize Firefox into Cantonese (yue) from ground up, while this
> bug is talking about creating a locale for a Hong Kong version that stays in
> (regular) Traditional Chinese.

It is OK to create a zh-yue localized project but in fact, Hong Kong people just use Cantonese for spoken language. But in time to see or read, they often use regular Traditional Chinese. So, if Cantonese Firefox exist, it should be a lot of controversial words and phrases. (You can click to the Wikipedia in Cantonese and know how horrible.) Together with the Cantonese characters are not unified, so there may be many obstacles.

Comment 12

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

Attachment: This is zh-HK language pack of Firefox 3.5b4 pre.

But there are some bug in it. It cannot show the phases of privacy.dtd and sanize.dtd. But mainly finished the localized work.

Comment 13

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

I've just edit the langpack of zh-HK in Firefox 3.5b4 pre, and let me post the different between zh-TW and zh-HK:
      * Change the default charset to Big5-HKSCS and not Big5. (intl.charset.default)
      * The search plug-ins all change to Hong Kong local search. (They are:
Google Hong Kong, Yahoo! Hong Kong, Yahoo! Dictionary, Yahoo! Answer,
Wikipedia, ebay Hong Kong, Facebook Hong Kong & Youtube Hong Kong.
      * The news RSS Feed, we hope to change to Ming Pao（明報） Hong Kong News.
      * I changed the URL of keyword.url in region.properties to http://www.google.com.hk/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
      * I changed the data of intl.accept.language in order to zh-HK→zh-TW→zh-CN→en.
      * I added a sign: zh-yue=zh-HK in langGroups.properties of the res folder to have a better support of Cantonese web page.
      * And I also changed some wordings that different form zh-TW version in
Hong Kong:
1. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\zh-HK\global\charsetTitles.properties
（Change“正體中文”to“繁體中文”。And in line142 add a new line“chardet.zhhk_parallel_state_machine.title”and set it  to“繁體中文 (正體中文)”）
2. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\zh-HK\global\intl.properties
（general.useragent.locale=zh-HK；font.language.group=zh-HK；intl.accept_languages=zh-hk, zh-tw, zh-cn, en；intl.charsetmenu.browser.static=Big5-HKSCS, Big5, ISO-8859-1, UTF-8；intl.charset.default=Big5-HKSCS。）
3. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\browser\aboutRobots.dtd
（Change“機器人”to“機械人”）
4. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\browser\browser.dtd
（Change“隱私”to“私隱”）
5. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\browser\browser.properties
（Change“隱私”to“私隱”）
6. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\browser\preferences\fonts.dtd 
（Change the data of !ENTITY  font.langGroup.trad-chinese-hk to "繁體中文 (正體，香港)"）
7. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\browser\preferences\preferences.dtd
（Change“隱私”to“私隱”）
8. chrome\zh-HK.jar\locale\browser\preferences\privacy.dtd
（Change“隱私”to“私隱”）

Comment 14

[Kwok Chun Ting]

I am a supporter of developing ZH-HK Firefox. I think that ZH-HK Firefox is really necessary for us.

As you know, Hong Kong people are different from Taiwanese (Though we both use Traditional Chinese), we speak Cantonese. Cantonese has different grammar for talking. Cantonese cannot communicate with Mandarin directly. Even sometimes we cannot know each other if we both use Mandarin because of the vocabulary differences. Yes we mainly use Mandarin liked method of writing to write, but we often use our own words - many of them comes from Cantonese. Even many times we use Cantonese directly to write. 

Also, contacting with Mozilla Taiwan cannot satisfy our needs. Hong Kong users have to solve the problems and share the opinions far away, that's unreasonable and troublesome. 

Anyway, ZH-HK Firefox is important for us, the Hong Kong Firefox users. We will keep promoting Firefox and always support Mozilla.

Comment 15

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: zh-TW -> zh-HK diff

1) I took the XPI from this bug
2) used silme's ./map_structure and ./apply_map to reorganize structure so it matches our source structure
3) diffed between zh-HK-source and zh-TW-source from l10n-central-1.9.1
4) Removed all changes that were pure comments removals or missing files

Attaching the result diff

Comment 16

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> As you know, Hong Kong people are different from Taiwanese (Though we both use
> Traditional Chinese), we speak Cantonese. Cantonese has different grammar for
> talking. Cantonese cannot communicate with Mandarin directly. Even sometimes we
> cannot know each other if we both use Mandarin because of the vocabulary
> differences. Yes we mainly use Mandarin liked method of writing to write, but
> we often use our own words - many of them comes from Cantonese. Even many times
> we use Cantonese directly to write. 
Dear Mr. Kwok,
I can totally understand your desire to localize Firefox into Cantonese (yue-HK), however this bug is alway about adopt Traditional Chinese (Mandarin) of Firefox to a version for Hong Kong people. If you feel this is the wrong way to do productization, please file another bug to create yue-HK localization team.

I personally still believe zh-HK is still the right way to do it. However the decision should be decided by Hong Kong people along. I, and people of the Taiwanese team will not say anything if would be contributors (like Zeroth) agree with you and decide to drop this bug.

(In reply to comment #15)
> Created an attachment (id=372862) [details]
> zh-TW -> zh-HK diff
> Attaching the result diff

Braniecki, Thank you for submitting the patch for Zeroth.

Zeroth, you have a typo at browser.dtd line 12. We get you anyway so don't bother.

Comment 17

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

Attachment: The new version that fixed the wrong typo in browser.dtd.

> (In reply to comment #15)
> > Created an attachment (id=372862) [details] [details]
> > zh-TW -> zh-HK diff
> > Attaching the result diff
>
> Braniecki, Thank you for submitting the patch for Zeroth.
>
> Zeroth, you have a typo at browser.dtd line 12. We get you anyway so don't
> bother.

Oh, sorry, I have already fixed it, and I posted it now but we have to redo the diff now.

Comment 18

[Chan Tsz Kin]

I don't really agree to use "patch" instead of publishing zh-HK version.

Comment 19

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

I suggest to release the langpack of Firefox 3.5 first, here is the langpaack of zh-HK in Firefox 3.5.2.

Comment 20

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> I suggest to release the langpack of Firefox 3.5 first, here is the langpaack
> of zh-HK in Firefox 3.5.2.

When we release the langpack of zh-HK, we can first fixed the extension locale fallback bug in zh-HK, and fixed the support of zh-HK page. (Add a sigh: zh-yue= zh-HK in res\langgroups.properties)

Comment 21

[Zeroth Yu (余弘志)]

Attachment: The language pack of zh-HK

If you used this language pack, all extention will fallback the locale to zh-CN (Simplified Chinese) it is not fits Hong Kong user, I hope Mozilla can fix this fallback bug.

Comment 22

[Kwok Chun Ting]

Hope Mozilla can know what we want to have and let us to get official ZH-HK Firefox quickly. 

We all love Firefox and we all love Hong Kong. :)

Comment 23

[Martin Lo]

I am sorry to  hear that firefox 3.6 did not have hong kong language pack
i am user of firefox i think firefox have Hong Kong language can improve user web experience zh-tw it is not fits Hong Kong user ihope in the furture maybe firefox 4 can see  Hong Kong language pack

Comment 24

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

Hi Martin,

I am not sure whether the original organizer of the HK locale team is still interested in the project, as he didn't not provide enough evidence to convince l10n-dev team that an HK version separate from TW version is necessary.

I have no position on this matter, nor any opinion about the approach (zh-yue or zh-hunt-HK).

You could take care of the matter if you want. I think some of the people is still at the HK forum. http://forum.moztw.org/viewforum.php?f=47


Tim
Mozilla Taiwan Community

Comment 25

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

This should depend on bug 525494, the chrome reg enhancement. The benefit of having a -HK version is outweighed by the bad user experience of extensions randomly showing up in zh-CN or zh-TW.

Comment 26

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

As I'm sure you are all aware at this point, 'zh' (Chinese) is a macrolanguage that encompasses a great number of languages. There is nothing inherently Mandarin about 'zh'.

If this bug is indeed intended to be for the Mandarin spoken in Hong Kong, I would recommend using 'cmn-HK'. Then there is no confusion about whether 'zh-HK' means Mandarin or Cantonese or any of a number of other Yue dialects. (I should also note that the use of 'zh-yue' is dispreferred in favor of simply 'yue'.)

If, for some reason, you need to further distinguish between Traditional and Simplified scripts, then you can additionally use 'Hant' and 'Hans' for that.

Comment 27

[c933103]

But 1. if lang code is cmn-hk then that would be quite odd when compare to zh-tw and zh-cn. And for the mandarin, as the fact that most HK people speak Cantonese in daily life so it might not be that correct to describe it as mandarin. But it is also not that proper to use Cantonese to describe the language as writing Cantonese down words by words would only be used in very casual scenario which i think it is not suitable to use as a language in browser. People would write standardrized Chinese but does not really able to classify as the mandarin as it usually just mean putonghua (the speaking form of Chinese that's most common in China and not populated in Hong Kong). Also, site like Chinese Wikipedia also using zh-hk to represent Chinese(Hong Kong), so i think zh-hk is the best language code for Chinese (Hong Kong)

Comment 28

[c933103]

...seem i make some mistake in the previous comment how can i edit it?

Comment 29

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

(In reply to c933103 from comment #27)
> But 1. if lang code is cmn-hk then that would be quite odd when compare to
> zh-tw and zh-cn. And for the mandarin, as the fact that most HK people speak
> Cantonese in daily life so it might not be that correct to describe it as
> mandarin. But it is also not that proper to use Cantonese to describe the
> language as writing Cantonese down words by words would only be used in very
> casual scenario which i think it is not suitable to use as a language in
> browser. People would write standardrized Chinese but does not really able
> to classify as the mandarin as it usually just mean putonghua (the speaking
> form of Chinese that's most common in China and not populated in Hong Kong).
> Also, site like Chinese Wikipedia also using zh-hk to represent Chinese(Hong
> Kong), so i think zh-hk is the best language code for Chinese (Hong Kong)

The situation of categorizing the Sinitic languages using language and region subtags is very complex.

Even ignoring the politics of what citizens of China and Taiwan (and Hong Kong) consider "Chinese" and whether they think all such citizens speak the same language, the situation on the Web is affected by common, ingrained practices.

In the past, "Chinese" was generally tagged as 'zh-TW' and 'zh-CN' when attempting to differentiate between Traditional and Simplified Han characters, without any regard to where the content was actually from. It was because of the (among other things) that the script subtag was introduced: Documents could then be tagged with 'zh-Hant' and 'zh-Hans' without misappropriating location information. This method has not yet fully caught on, but it is heading in the right direction.

However, there is another issue: 'zh' represents "Chinese". The problem is, as I alluded to above, that "Chinese" is not a single language that is mutually intelligible among all its speakers. As such, the 'zh' language subtag has been marked as a macrolanguage and its use is thus discouraged in favor of a more specific language subtag. The problem there, of course, is that even these more-specific language subtags often represent many different furtherly-independent languages that may not be mutually intelligible, and the addition of a region or script tag would not necessarily be enough to disambiguate that.

But many of these issues crop up only when discussing spoken language. Written language, particularly ideographs like Han, has the benefits of being able to unify comprehension even when the spoken forms of the symbols do not necessarily match between speakers. Normally, this could mean that you could pick a language tag (even such as 'zh'), tag on a script subtag, maybe tag on a region subtag, and be done with it.

The problem here, though, is that there are different ways of writing the Han characters (even within the category of Traditional or Simplified) and different choices for what ideographs to use. This is the fundamental problem that we must solve.

It is my understanding that what is normally tagged as 'zh' is usually referring to Modern Standard Mandarin (AKA Putonghua, Guoyu, Gwok Yu, Huayu, etc.). Thus, it seems more appropriate to me to use 'cmn' (Mandarin) to tag it, though I admit that infobox on Wikipedia does not seem to agree with that notion. Then, if you wanted to be more specific and specify the MSM as spoken in Hong Kong, you'd use 'cmn-HK'. Admittedly, this does not allow for a disambiguation between MSM (a prestige form) and the Mandarin commonly and colloquially spoken on the streets of Hong Kong, but I don't think there is any desire to codify that into a Firefox locale. (There is an inherent formality in all computer program localization.) In addition, the fact that it is actually more common to hear Cantonese (or Yue) on the streets of Hong Kong is actually irrelevant here, as that is not the language that is intended to be used in this localization. (As already mentioned, that would be tagged as something like 'yue-HK', though that too would open up this can of worms about the different forms of Yue, which includes Cantonese.)

So that is my argument for using 'cmn-HK' to classify this new locale. My arguments against the use of 'zh-CN' and 'zh-TW' for the existing locales fall along similar lines.

Also, for the record, Wikipedia does not always use the most appropriate language tags in their subdomain choices for their localized encyclopedias; sometimes they even use altogether invalid tags. So I wouldn't necessarily use them as a role model in situations like this.

(In reply to c933103 from comment #28)
> ...seem i make some mistake in the previous comment how can i edit it?

Unfortunately, you cannot edit comments on Bugzilla. If you would like to clarify what you've already written, you'll have to make a new comment.

Comment 30

[arky [:arky]]

Is there a active L10n team for this locale?

Comment 31

[Po-chiang Chao [:bobchao]]

arky: No, as far as I know.

IMO even the HK locale builds up, the main different parts between zh-TW and HK builds would be the default settings (like the search plugins, bookmarks, etc.) but not the text shows on UI. I'm sure that we can simply create an extension for people who need this, but the experience will not as good as a single binary build.

Maybe the first step to prove the necessity is to build an extension, and see if people need/like it.


(In reply to Gordon P. Hemsley [:gphemsley] from comment #26)
> If this bug is indeed intended to be for the Mandarin spoken in Hong Kong, I
> would recommend using 'cmn-HK'. Then there is no confusion about whether
> 'zh-HK' means Mandarin or Cantonese or any of a number of other Yue
> dialects. (I should also note that the use of 'zh-yue' is dispreferred in
> favor of simply 'yue'.)

For consistency with other software, I would suggest that we still using zh-HK, if the new locale created.

Comment 32

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

I'll not re-read everything here, but I'd like to add that Gordon has different reasons to suggest options than I would.

The *main* issue with zh-HK is interoperability with our add-on ecosystem and the web, in that sites out there can't deduce which zh-* to fall back to easily. As I read the standards, we can basically throw a dice.

Using something not-zh-* is making that problem just harder. Sad but true, accept-lang is not the dominent API for mutlilingual sites, but navigator.language is.

If our chrome registry would support script tags, we can disambiguate on that level, and hopefully most of the web can do that, too.

Comment 33

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

Reverting to 'zh-HK' per CLDR replacement rules:
http://unicode.org/repos/cldr/trunk/common/supplemental/supplementalMetadata.xml

Comment 34

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

(In reply to Axel Hecht [:Pike] from comment #32)
> Using something not-zh-* is making that problem just harder. Sad but true,
> accept-lang is not the dominent API for mutlilingual sites, but
> navigator.language is.

For the record, since Gecko 5, the value of window.navigator.language has been tied to intl.accept_languages. (Of course, the point is moot now, given comment 33.)

Comment 35

[henryfhchan]

Reply to comment 16
> I can totally understand your desire to localize Firefox into Cantonese (yue-HK), 
> however this bug is alway about adopt Traditional Chinese (Mandarin) of Firefox 
> to a version for Hong Kong people.
and Comment 26 and 29
> So that is my argument for using 'cmn-HK' to classify this new locale. My 
> arguments against the use of 'zh-CN' and 'zh-TW' for the existing locales fall 
> along similar lines.

I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand what is happening.
In Hong Kong, we, the main population, use Cantonese.
Only minor groups use Mandarin.

I simply do not see how come this bug has been twisted to making a "Mandarin Chinese, Hong Kong" version of Firefox.  We Hongkongers do not use the terms as that used in mainland China nor Taiwan.  Which simply means we both do not speak Mandarin Chinese, nor use the terms commonly used in speaking Mandarin.

(Not to mention there is already an ongoing cultural conflict in Hong Kong about the influx of Communist China-style terms.)

If zh-TW uses the terms and characters of Taiwan, and zh-CN uses the terms and characters of mainland China, I simply cannot understand the fuss about using what kind of zh-HK/yue-HK/cmn-HK.  This bug is about using the terms and characters of Hong Kong, zh-HK is clear enough to say, this is the Chinese used in Hong Kong, terms, and character forms.

The fallback behavior should simply be zh-TW first, then zh-CN.  Even though the terms used in Cantonese are more similar to zh-CN in the scientific context (e.g. chemical element names, etc.), people of Hong Kong are deeply emotionally attached to the traditional form of Chinese characters, which is that usually served by zh-TW locale.  Plus with the majority of Hong Kong Firefox users using zh-TW or (en-US), it would simply make sense to use zh-TW as first priority fallback.

I think if we Hongkongers are allowed a new locale, the use cases of us should be honoured, as we are simply the users of this product.  Theories about how Chinese became fractured over history is impractical to making a localization that just fits practical user use.

I hope my two cents can help steer the direction of a zh-HK locale right.  Or else I simply don't see the use of a zh-HK locale if it doesn't even seem right to local people.

Comment 36

[henryfhchan]

can we please revert the Bug summary to "We want to apply zh-HK localizied project. And our team has already grouped." or change it to "[zh-HK][Fx] New localization: Chinese (Hong Kong)" ?

Comment 37

[qunowcatarecv]

(In reply to henry.fai.hang.chan from comment #35)
> Reply to comment 16
> > I can totally understand your desire to localize Firefox into Cantonese (yue-HK), 
> > however this bug is alway about adopt Traditional Chinese (Mandarin) of Firefox 
> > to a version for Hong Kong people.
> and Comment 26 and 29
> > So that is my argument for using 'cmn-HK' to classify this new locale. My 
> > arguments against the use of 'zh-CN' and 'zh-TW' for the existing locales fall 
> > along similar lines.
> 
> I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand what is happening.
> In Hong Kong, we, the main population, use Cantonese.
> Only minor groups use Mandarin.
> 
> I simply do not see how come this bug has been twisted to making a "Mandarin
> Chinese, Hong Kong" version of Firefox.  We Hongkongers do not use the terms
> as that used in mainland China nor Taiwan.  Which simply means we both do
> not speak Mandarin Chinese, nor use the terms commonly used in speaking
> Mandarin.
> 
> (Not to mention there is already an ongoing cultural conflict in Hong Kong
> about the influx of Communist China-style terms.)
> 
> If zh-TW uses the terms and characters of Taiwan, and zh-CN uses the terms
> and characters of mainland China, I simply cannot understand the fuss about
> using what kind of zh-HK/yue-HK/cmn-HK.  This bug is about using the terms
> and characters of Hong Kong, zh-HK is clear enough to say, this is the
> Chinese used in Hong Kong, terms, and character forms.
> 
> The fallback behavior should simply be zh-TW first, then zh-CN.  Even though
> the terms used in Cantonese are more similar to zh-CN in the scientific
> context (e.g. chemical element names, etc.), people of Hong Kong are deeply
> emotionally attached to the traditional form of Chinese characters, which is
> that usually served by zh-TW locale.  Plus with the majority of Hong Kong
> Firefox users using zh-TW or (en-US), it would simply make sense to use
> zh-TW as first priority fallback.
> 
> I think if we Hongkongers are allowed a new locale, the use cases of us
> should be honoured, as we are simply the users of this product.  Theories
> about how Chinese became fractured over history is impractical to making a
> localization that just fits practical user use.
> 
> I hope my two cents can help steer the direction of a zh-HK locale right. 
> Or else I simply don't see the use of a zh-HK locale if it doesn't even seem
> right to local people.

But the fact is that what HK people usually write, unlike what being speak, is白話文，which is in fact mandarin Chinese (if i ain't mistaken).

Comment 38

[mrkschan]

(In reply to bugzillamozilla from comment #37)
> (In reply to henry.fai.hang.chan from comment #35)
> > Reply to comment 16
> > > I can totally understand your desire to localize Firefox into Cantonese (yue-HK), 
> > > however this bug is alway about adopt Traditional Chinese (Mandarin) of Firefox 
> > > to a version for Hong Kong people.
> > and Comment 26 and 29
> > > So that is my argument for using 'cmn-HK' to classify this new locale. My 
> > > arguments against the use of 'zh-CN' and 'zh-TW' for the existing locales fall 
> > > along similar lines.
> > 
> > I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand what is happening.
> > In Hong Kong, we, the main population, use Cantonese.
> > Only minor groups use Mandarin.
> > 
> > I simply do not see how come this bug has been twisted to making a "Mandarin
> > Chinese, Hong Kong" version of Firefox.  We Hongkongers do not use the terms
> > as that used in mainland China nor Taiwan.  Which simply means we both do
> > not speak Mandarin Chinese, nor use the terms commonly used in speaking
> > Mandarin.
> > 
> > (Not to mention there is already an ongoing cultural conflict in Hong Kong
> > about the influx of Communist China-style terms.)
> > 
> > If zh-TW uses the terms and characters of Taiwan, and zh-CN uses the terms
> > and characters of mainland China, I simply cannot understand the fuss about
> > using what kind of zh-HK/yue-HK/cmn-HK.  This bug is about using the terms
> > and characters of Hong Kong, zh-HK is clear enough to say, this is the
> > Chinese used in Hong Kong, terms, and character forms.
> > 
> > The fallback behavior should simply be zh-TW first, then zh-CN.  Even though
> > the terms used in Cantonese are more similar to zh-CN in the scientific
> > context (e.g. chemical element names, etc.), people of Hong Kong are deeply
> > emotionally attached to the traditional form of Chinese characters, which is
> > that usually served by zh-TW locale.  Plus with the majority of Hong Kong
> > Firefox users using zh-TW or (en-US), it would simply make sense to use
> > zh-TW as first priority fallback.
> > 
> > I think if we Hongkongers are allowed a new locale, the use cases of us
> > should be honoured, as we are simply the users of this product.  Theories
> > about how Chinese became fractured over history is impractical to making a
> > localization that just fits practical user use.
> > 
> > I hope my two cents can help steer the direction of a zh-HK locale right. 
> > Or else I simply don't see the use of a zh-HK locale if it doesn't even seem
> > right to local people.
> 
> But the fact is that what HK people usually write, unlike what being speak,
> is白話文，which is in fact mandarin Chinese (if i ain't mistaken).

I'm a local hk people who live here for 20+ years and use Firefox since v1.6. I write in Traditional Chinese and English because they are the official written language in Hong Kong. Mandarin Chinese was introduced to the education system since 1997 as an optional "foreign" spoken language. And, I had never heard the term "白話文" and i just know "白話" is a spoken language.

If firefox gives me an option of "Mandarin Chinese, Hong Kong" or "Cantonese Chinese, Hong Kong", that's totally nonsense to me since they are both spoken language and being displayed in Firefox.

Comment 39

[henryfhchan]

白話是白話，與文言相對。
港人白話與內地台灣白話不同
白話並不等於更不屬於普通話

本題是引入使用港式用語的白話firefox.
並非粵語firefox, 更非普通話firefox.

港式詞彙有如“私隱”、“機械人”、“複製”，
與國語及普通話不同。

白話is modern written chinese
opposite to historical written chinese 文言
白話in hong kong is different than that of taiwan or mainland.
白話does not equal nor belong to mandarin.

the bug should be about using hong kong terms
not a direct Cantonese transliteration nor mandarin transliteration Firefox. 

Hong Kong terms include 私隱 機械人 複製
opposed to taiwan 隱私 機器人 拷貝 (privacy, robot and copy)

--

as a local, I would just say,
we need a localisation using our technical terms. 
not a direct transliteration of Canton nor Mandarin. 

hong kongers do not write transliteration of cantonese in formal context.
we write modern written Chinese with different terms. This bug should be using these terms. not making a mandarin (cmn) or cantonese (yue) translieration.

Comment 40

[henryfhchan]

exactly as mrkschan.

mandarin is mandarin, cantonese is cantonese, both are spoken.

written formal chinese is sinply different in hong kong than that of taiwan and mainland.
a localisation only makes sense to use the formal written style, local terms. not some transliteration of spoken language/dialect, and especially not the formal terms used in another location.

Comment 41

[henryfhchan]

a clarification to mrkschan on his query about "白話文"
白話文運動出現於五四運動時候，學術界主張我手寫我口，將口語直接寫成文章，是為白話文，與文言文相對。
現時所有市面上的書幾乎都是用白話文，中港台政府文獻也是使用白話文。

(translation)
白話文 (modern written chinese) appeared in the New Culture Movement in China, academics advocated "I write what I speak" as the formal writing style.  It is opposite to 文言文 (historical written Chinese), the historical grammar of written Chinese.  Nearly all books are written in 白話文 (modern written chinese), it is also the formal written grammar of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.


More Information:
It is often "believed" that formal written Chinese is equivalent to Mandarin.  This is incorrect, even though both may use the same words and similar grammar, formal written Chinese should be defined as a type of grammar, while Mandarin is both a type of spoken grammer and a set of certain pronunciation of words.

Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong use different terms, due to historical reasons.  Because mainland China and Taiwan use Mandarin, and Hong Kong uses Cantonese, it has been incorrectly assumed that Hong Kong terms = Cantonese terms. , and Mainland Terms / Taiwan Terms = Mandarin terms.

However, In Guangzhou, the "origin" of Cantonese, young people will often use the mainland Chinese terms, pronounced in Cantonese. (The older generation in China will use terms that are similar to the older generation in Hong Kong) Similarly, mainland Chinese people who live in Hong Kong long enough will often use the Mandarin pronunciation of Hong Kong terms.

--

A localisation of any program should suit the market of that particular place.  We do not transliterate Cantonese into written form ( meaning writing the exact syllables and grammar on to paper ), nor is this even acceptable as a formal writing style.  Neither will any passage using direct transliteration of Mandarin into written form be deemed suitable for formal means.

Just as English (British) and English (US) differs by using "tap" vs "faucet", Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan) and Chinese (Mainland China) should (and is only necessary to) differ by the exact terms suitable (e.g. 打印機 vs 印表機 vs 打印机) in that location.

Making "Mandarin Chinese, Hong Kong" localisation can be thought of using American English slang with the British spelling ("There ain't no colours here.").  Making a "Cantonese, Hong Kong" localisation can be thought of making a "Spoken English, Britain" localisation that uses "Way Out" all over the place when normally one would write "Exit" in formal context.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Comment 42

[Po-chiang Chao [:bobchao]]

Hi Henry,

If you wanna help to clarify the summary of this bug, simply click the "edit" link next to it, and make change, say "Traditional Chinese, Hong Kong."

You can also provide "good reason" as Axel said in Comment #5, or even better, provide helps needed from l10n team to solve this "bug."

Comment 43

[henryfhchan]

Sorry I cannot find the edit link, nor do I know how to fork the project.  However I can be sent a plain file and I will convert them all to the required terms.

Comment 44

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

This locale registration bug is being resolved as INCOMPLETE because it has not been updated since before the final Firefox 10esr release on 2013-01-08. It is assumed that there has not been any progress in developing the desired localization since that time.

If you feel this bug has been closed in error, please reopen it and provide a status update for your locale.

In addition, please be sure to follow the guidelines listed on the wiki for creating a new localization:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Starting_a_localization

[Mass change filter: l10n-new-incomplete-fx10esr]

Comment 45

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

> If you feel this bug has been closed in error, please reopen it and provide
> a status update for your locale.

Sammy, were you aware of this? (Sammy is the Mozilla lead from Hong Kong)

Comment 46

[Sammy Fung]

I invited and met Zeroth Yu on Firefox 4 Launch Party in Hong Kong, Yu created a Hong Kong community edition of Firefox many years ago but it is no longer maintain.

And as I know, he is busy on revising for his examination in years. I just send him facebook message about this ticket and wait for reply.

On the other hand, on next MozCafe in Hong Kong on Dec 7, local Mozillians will discuss possibilities and feature of new Hong Kong community edition of Firefox.

https://reps.mozilla.org/e/mozcafe-hong-kong-2013-12/