[asterisk-bugs] [Asterisk 0015346]: [patch] TW is not an ISO Language Code

[Asterisk Bug Tracker]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
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https://issues.asterisk.org/view.php?id=15346 
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Reported By:                volivier
Assigned To:                
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Project:                    Asterisk
Issue ID:                   15346
Category:                   Core/Internationalization
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   minor
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     ready for testing
Asterisk Version:           1.6.1.0 
Regression:                 No 
SVN Branch (only for SVN checkouts, not tarball releases):  trunk 
SVN Revision (number only!):  
Request Review:              
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Date Submitted:             2009-06-17 16:49 CDT
Last Modified:              2009-06-19 13:58 CDT
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Summary:                    [patch] TW is not an ISO Language Code
Description: 
Tawanese actually is standard mandarin chinese that is categorized as
"zh-tw" or simply "zh" and NEVER "tw". Should simply be "zh" in Asterisk
because Asterisk is not concerned with the actual script of a locale (the
way it is written).

The reason why setting taiwanese as "tw" is a problem, is because it
fragments the efforts to localize in the standard mandarin chinese language
(which is coded as "zh") and is a bad internationalization practice
altogether.
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 (0106728) volivier (reporter) - 2009-06-19 13:58
 https://issues.asterisk.org/view.php?id=15346#c106728 
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I think it's a VERY bad idea to go with the 3-letter codes for the simple
reason that the effort for syntactic localization that is made in one
language variant will not apply in another even if syntactically, they are
equivalent as far as Asterisk is concerned. It is possible to achieve
differentiation with the 2-letter ISO language codes This can be done with
the following notation (like it is used in Java and other fundamentally
internationalizable systems) : %LANGUAGE%_%VARIANT%, where %LANGUAGE% is a
2 letter ISO language code, and VARIANT can be anything including a ISO
country+region code with even an additional prefix for very precise
variations. It allows to share the syntax structure code (for all "zh"
languages, the C code remains the same), while giving you the possibility
of having different recording sets for each variation ("zh_CN", "zh_TW").

See the Java doc for more information :
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html 

Issue History 
Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change               
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2009-06-19 13:58 volivier       Note Added: 0106728                          
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