[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Problematic translation

[Jeff Mallatt <jjm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2000/06/17 13:04 , Martin Christensen wrote:
>As most of my fellow translators will know, one of the things that
>really makes translating certain things problematic is how to handle
>noun genders. Now, in English it's no problem, because most nouns can
>simply be prefixed with 'the' and 'a', but we are not all so
>fortunate. For instance, in Danish it's called 'en republik' but 'et
>demokrati'. The Germans are more fortunate with 'eine Republik' and
>'eine Demokratie', but that isn't always the case. This makes rather
>inelegant solutions necessary, unless the way these things are handled
>is changed. I suggest resorting to a more flexible solution, which
>will require a few more game variables. I have not yet examined how
>large the consequences of such a restructuring will be, but I don't
>think it will be too much work, though many files will be touched. The
>translators are probably those who will suffer the most in the short
>term, but the benefits will be many in the long run.
>
>I suggest splitting up the words that cause conflicts into as many
>elements as necessary. A few examples:
>
>a settler       settlers        the settlers
>a marketplace   marketplace     the marketplace
>Hanging Gardens                 The Hanging Gardens
>
>Dealing with nations is probably the most trouble:
>
>Babylonians
>the Babylonians
>of the Babylonians (genetive, very practical esp. in German)
>etc.
>
>This, I believe, is the way CivII does it, which is where I got my
>inspiration. I strongly suggest that we implement this immediately for
>1.11, if it doesn't prove too much of a hassle. It probably has to be
>done sooner or later, so why not sooner?

This idea has been kicking around the lists for awhile (see
<http://arch.freeciv.org/freeciv-dev-200002/msg00219.html>).

Yet, nobody has stepped up and volunteered to do the work (it looks like a
big, tedious and thankless chore).

Maybe we can get things started by simply going through the freeciv.pot
file and looking for all the kinds of variants we need (perhaps this could
be done by someone with better grammar skills than I).  This could be a
kind of "spec" for the job.  Then, perhaps, some coder would be willing to
take on the task of implementing it.

jjm