[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [PATCH] More explicit message when a unit is killed by barbarians upon entering a hut.

[Big Gaute <gs234@xxxxxxxxx>]

Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> > > printf ("Your %s unit has been killed by barbarians.", unittype);
> > 
> > This is one way to solve the problem: change the wording, which is
> > what I did (though slightly differently.)  It all becomes more
> > difficult when you consider internationalisation.  In some languages
> > you'd have to consider not only number but also gender (e.g. Russian,
> > I think).
> 
> And French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Polish, basically, every
> European language but English.

AFAIK the third-person past tense does not depend on gender in most
European languages; at least not German, Norwegian, Swedish or Danish.
(In the case of the last three it doesn't even depend on number, so if
freeciv had scandinavian messages by default this would not have been
a problem in the first place 8-)) Russian is an exception that I know
of; probably most slavic languages are similar.

In the more general case you are, of course, right.  You would also
have to consider case and aspect.  This is all very difficult to deal
with in a really general way, and would be incredibly difficult to
cope with at the freeciv level.  You would need some sort of system
where a printf format string can specify what sort of 'version' of a
particular noun it requires, and some sort of mechanism to retrieve
it.  You'd also need some sort of mechanism to change other bits of
the sentence (e.g. "has" -> "have") depending on the noun.  This is
all immensely complicated, and it's just for European languages.  I
have no idea what sort of headaches you'd have to deal with to support
CJVK, for example.

> > Big Gaute (not to be confused with LG)
> 
> (who is LG anyway?)

Little Gaute is 2 years old and lives in Toronto, Canada.  He's very
cute, and I'm what you would call a friend of the family.  I would go
on, but this is getting very off-topic for freeciv-dev. 8-)

-- 
Big Gaute (not to be confused with LG)
"There was a time when a guy who died at forty was revered as the toughest
and most doggedly ancient son of a bitch in Cow Ass Clearing, Shitoleshire,
Engalond, back in the year dot." - Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan #25