Re: Date Format with month names in genitive case - your opinions?

[David Sapienza <david sapienza protonmail com>]

In the Italian and French languages the nominative form is used in the full context date too. 

In languages where the genitive form is used in full context, it is often written in nominative form (as an abbreviation) and generally in these cases it can't be considered an error (it won't break the application) whereas, using the genitive form for the month name is certainly a bad thing (we can say that it'll break the application). 

So I agree with fios: I think that it is better to use the "O" modifier (%OB) for the genitive form (in the languages that uses it) while we should keep the %B for the nominative form.


David
-------- Original Message --------
On 19 apr 2017, 11:06, Fòram na Gàidhlig < fios foramnagaidhlig net> wrote:
>  
>  
>   From my language's point of view. The CLDR approach is what looks the
>   
>  most sensible. Displaying "of April" as a standalone date would look
>   
>  very weird in my language, and having the 'genitive' form displayed as
>   
>  nominative would be the lesser of two evils.
>   
>  
>   
>  For example:
>   
>  
>   
>  June = An t-Ògmhios
>   
>  18 June = 18mh dhen Ògmhios
>   
>  
>   
>  So, depending on how it's coded, that would give us "dhen Ògmhios" or
>   
>  "mh dhen Ògmhios" if the 'genitive' was used as a standalone date.
>   
>  
>   
>  
>   
>  
>   
>  Sgrìobh Rafal Luzynski na leanas 18/04/2017 aig 23:19:
>   
>  > Hello,
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > I was told that GNOME i18n is the right place to discuss this issue
>   
>  > because it gathers translators from more languages than any other
>   
>  > place in this part of the net. The problem has been reported to GNOME
>   
>  > bugzilla as bug 749206 [1] but in fact it's not a GNOME bug but glibc
>   
>  > bug. [2]
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > What is the issue: in many languages, mostly from eastern Europe,
>   
>  > including my native language, a correct grammatical form of the month
>   
>  > name when used in the full date context is genitive. A literal
>   
>  > translation to English applying the same rule would be "18 of April".
>   
>  > Also we still need the nominative case when the month name appears
>   
>  > standalone (for example sometimes we just want to say "April").
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > The proposed solution is to change strftime() function and anything
>   
>  > that is backed by or compatible with strftime(): in glib2 the
>   
>  > functions are g_date_time_format() and g_date_strftime(). These
>   
>  > functions besides "%B" (full month name) should start supporting
>   
>  > "%OB" (alternative month name). Also nl_langinfo() function would
>   
>  > be modified: as now MON_1, MON_2, ..., MON_12 return the data to
>   
>  > be used as the result of "%B" format specifiers the new set of
>   
>  > constants ALTMON_1, ALTMON_2, ..., ALTMON_12 would be introduced
>   
>  > to provide the data for "%OB" format specifier.
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > This exact solution:
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > - has been implemented in *BSD systems (FreeBSD, OpenBSD etc.) in
>   
>  > 1990s;
>   
>  > - is also supported in Apple systems (OS X and iOS) except exposing
>   
>  > ALTMON_n constants in nl_langinfo();
>   
>  > - has been accepted by POSIX as the future change of the
>   
>  > specification but has not yet released it. [3]
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > Now the controversial part: in all those solutions nl_langinfo(MON_n)
>   
>  > and strftime("%B") return the genitive case of the month name and
>   
>  > the newly introduced nl_langinfo(ALTMON_n) and strftime("%OB") return
>   
>  > the nominative form. It's controversial because now in Linux
>   
>  > nl_langinfo(MON_n) and strftime("%B") return the nominative case
>   
>  > while the other case is simply not supported. This would require
>   
>  > somehow incompatible change. (Note: the backward compatibility feature
>   
>  > can be introduced.)
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > Also it should be emphasized that "genitive and nominative" is
>   
>  > a little unprecise misleading. Correctly it should be named "the
>   
>  > correct form when using the month in the full date context, together
>   
>  > with the day number" vs. "standalone, without the day number".
>   
>  > For example, the languages which have the genitive form but don't
>   
>  > use it in the full date context would use their own proper form
>   
>  > instead.
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > Why did BSD, Apple, and POSIX choose that counterintuitive approach?
>   
>  > One should make a bigger survey before answering this question but
>   
>  > I believe that it's because the date formats are more often used to
>   
>  > format the date with the day of the month number than to format the
>   
>  > month name standalone. This change would fix all applications which
>   
>  > display the dates without any change in their source code so I think
>   
>  > it is good even if it would break those few applications which
>   
>  > display the month names standalone. By "break" I mean "they would
>   
>  > start displaying the month names in an incorrect form (similarly
>   
>  > as all other applications display the month names incorrectly now)".
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > Note that a similar approach has been chosen by ICU and CLDR with
>   
>  > their own date formats: MMMM represents the month name in a genitive
>   
>  > case while LLLL is used when they need a nominative case explicitly.
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > glibc maintainers hesitate to accept this solution. I believe they
>   
>  > need some feedback from the people who actually are going to use this
>   
>  > feature. So far they agreed [4] to accept this solution but only if
>   
>  > it is documented as the new experimental feature and if it is not
>   
>  > yet documented which of "%B" and "%OB" is genitive (full date format)
>   
>  > and which is nominative (standalone). The idea was that it should
>   
>  > be decided by the language communities which is which. Also sometimes
>   
>  > they suggest that BSD implementation is wrong and should be switched.
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > So, language communities, what is your opinion about it?
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > GNOME is a multiplatform project, it is intended to work correctly
>   
>  > on Linux but also Windows, OS X, BSD and many other platforms. I think
>   
>  > it will be easier for the application developers if Linux follows
>   
>  > other platforms as well as the future POSIX specification.
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > You may be also interested in seeing my slides about the issue: [5]
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > Best regards,
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > Rafal
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > 
>   
>  > [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=749206
>   
>  > [2] https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10871
>   
>  > [3] http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=258
>   
>  > [4] https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2016-12/msg01103.html
>   
>  > [5]
>   
>  > https://rluzynski.fedorapeople.org/slides/2017-01-27-DevConf.cz/GenitiveMonths-updated.pdf
>   
>  > _______________________________________________
>   
>  > gnome-i18n mailing list
>   
>  > gnome-i18n gnome org
>   
>  > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
>   
>  > 
>   
>  
>   
>  -- 
>   
>  -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
>   
>  Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (MingW32)
>   
>  
>   
>  mQINBFNbSyEBEADh+uhohycnZgPPnyMs5pZQG6pKyLzFZoIKbVjY31ZoPZ2SdltB
>   
>  elrwn6kFZkQiDx4K6nkZFHsPh8RMvWoFWg1rGiWkdsZessLFawraC8YEZDwtlaU5
>   
>  SFXbE4+QnMfbPhe9tmC8Nbhec3dfV9zcXAhxc+zkIUsKFhSkpJ2Syvo9FCA/5adW
>   
>  UZgWWKFwlSg4+/lrhJ6QJnldPlXfWcuEasKF7fjdafDIdS5hdKu8Lv+CiPQWvgsi
>   
>  J2BDlZLzEZf3PD+NMujUbJa0nilD2ltu3/qRvR2f86YV6wRwt4E2OD8JJQOau4X2
>   
>  Pg7vqkIbnB9rMiQ6T17rQ4rc80eesGCxQ6XOba9oa1eRRZDwY7HJtYwvPdw9HZaN
>   
>  Lq2RRbGDGO0q7fxrzbp1WuNN+UXOA/pmVzWWczPfPHVcNIehGf3wQI+Vgh/qa+IZ
>   
>  jLJ25I1Tv85cDzvv5gdtI8PR4JTfK6Db+gUJmsuIg2fmsljxA7OmeTgSPR7nEVq5
>   
>  VlHYfx1T0uKlthWw/eDwlS44vTgm6HZzIdYqdPMPa/PU1U+WVuDejyDJTn/1TY78
>   
>  oJMT/IixFR+N+smohhKASprewcsO2ClWGptSG0sRTiCrVHFD3Mt6SCVaxsQLHvek
>   
>  KuNAUXhR2KSvYuqGT0Nv3bplN6svCp4CuAGZ3lyOIt/Sb7OFUwzcx2sOdwARAQAB
>   
>  tC5Gw7JyYW0gbmEgR8OgaWRobGlnIDxmaW9zQGZvcmFtbmFnYWlkaGxpZy5uZXQ+
>   
>  iQI5BBMBAgAjBQJTW0shAhsPBwsJCAcDAgEGFQgCCQoLBBYCAwECHgECF4AACgkQ
>   
>  UHP09XBr75NHNBAAxv2C/G13Z1kCFOSOnbPpzqcIDcMuP7RK1Mv5XfOZLfqSw4le
>   
>  gdDmZggX2/EBH6xFTXFPLSE6rVUKTkHLA7IY8D43GBtDWjcIyyuLnIjtR+LhRKCP
>   
>  3/Sm8MyZMQvUH1CBpUXFNnP/HCR6xjm1Mog5kXxFeCR9PMjeEiobKXIVuMfuNlBD
>   
>  WzoR2Nh+oroXLjZw3VMFewiCyhu4Pe7F3sLpVldiI3PBOyPQOBZ3HEIM490D/Lrh
>   
>  rl3Wwmoug8j8rqkh/Fr+kKaToRJik4PkcxsfepzhMdNfCpr7I3jE5XQHzib5Ubv8
>   
>  wsSaVNBG92NTnGKoAntWXBUaiDN84St9l+Zm/BgedRk+7wdESHBuOuFXoRc0yEjF
>   
>  4tLOhyO9u5bYGQWHyJiwhbw51R8G+Kh3OPq/tr4KmsuueEI2v5cLkoDzwCpYyMnu
>   
>  BfU8d0mt5eULbQCWcy7LYeQs6E+CEB+tPL3Qz2zaAAvwt7N2PLMjHf5Fcqj5LqrV
>   
>  mzQfcB9zQFq9Rtld/IIIDkE1y/q/SNFYsFNW/u/bxWsu+lMOYtBco++O5DJhAq6t
>   
>  7rJXUBirju50hhogHfBL2v6RG1b8/uiWm0m8713ZhiSvpr4Dd+V+DU9nPli5nTmU
>   
>  En6gP7TTYJKETMf7O9i873Z8yG6zd0/fBzFyruS2KRTPV2GiVT6CI37gUtw=
>   
>  =fcOW
>   
>  -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
>   
>  _______________________________________________
>   
>  gnome-i18n mailing list
>   
>  gnome-i18n gnome org
>   
>  https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
>   
>  
>