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

[Raimar Falke <hawk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2001 at 12:19:19AM +0200, Michael Stefaniuc wrote:
> 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'.)

I have no clue about all this but:
 person:    Scot     (can be replaced with "<adjective> person" like in a "A 
Scottish child got injured")
 people:    Scots
 adjective: Scottish
 country:   Scotland

The scottish ruleset only contains the adjective and the people. The
single person form may be not needed in freeciv. So do we need an
extra property (the country/nation)?

> > 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?

        Raimar

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