[Freeciv-Dev] Re: L10n: get_nation_name - /only/ used as an attribute?

[Michael Stefaniuc <mstefani@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!

On Mon, Oct 15, 2001 at 05:28:45PM +0200, Sini Ruohomaa wrote:
> A translation-related question: is get_nation_name (returns eg.
> "Singaporean") /only/ called as an attribute or is it used anywhere to
> refer to one person of that nationality?
That's the common usage of it.

>   In other words, are all the contexts of the form ("The %s ship has
> arrived.", foo->get_nation_name), or is there also a chance of getting a
> ("That %s I met yesterday was a really nice person.",
> foo->get_nation_name)?
Didn't encoutered one, beside the nation chooser at the very beginning
(but you pointed that out already).

> A variable/function-naming related rant:
> There is some unclarity with what the functions referring to
> get_nation_name "return". When we translate nationalities, there's always
> two fields: get_nation_name (eg. Singaporean) and get_nation_name_plural:
> (eg. Singaporeans). The confusion rises from 1) English often having the
> very same word for both 'one Singaporean (that is, a person)' and the
> attribute form 'a Singaporean ship (an adjective-like word)', and at best
That's true also for Romanian and the reason why I didn't had the
problem. But I checked also the german (where the "singular" form differs
from the "attribute" form) translation and there only the "attribute" form
is used.

> one word for all three (French ship, one French, many French); and
> 2) referring to the two fields as 'name' and 'plural'.
> 
> I've been going through the contexts, and it seems that the "nation name"
> is actually the "plural" field in rulesets, and the "name" field would be
> better off to be called "attribute", because otherwise it can easily be
> confused with the opposite of the plural. (My nation: the Singaporeans,
> not the Singaporean.)
That's true.

> I managed to find an example in English: a confused turk(ish).ruleset.
> Is:        name=Turk,    plural=Turks.
> Should be: name=Turkish, plural=Turks.
> (Assuming Turk is a singular of Turks and not a special way of writing
> 'Turkish'.)
> 
> Imagine for a moment that get_nation_name actually returns the name of the
> nation = Turkey.
>   Then try to translate things like "%s view:" and "The %s spaceship has
> vanished in a puff of logic.", where both call the function. Can't you
> hear the clucking already?

bye
        michael
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