* Marking:: Marking Translatable Strings
* c-format Flag:: Telling something about the following string
* Special cases:: Special Cases of Translatable Strings
+* Names:: Marking Proper Names for Translation
Making the PO Template File
* Marking:: Marking Translatable Strings
* c-format Flag:: Telling something about the following string
* Special cases:: Special Cases of Translatable Strings
+* Names:: Marking Proper Names for Translation
@end menu
@node Triggering, Preparing Strings, Sources, Sources
@ref{xgettext Invocation} to see how the @code{--debug} option can be
used for solving this problem.
-@node Special cases, , c-format Flag, Sources
+@node Special cases, Names, c-format Flag, Sources
@section Special Cases of Translatable Strings
@cindex marking string initializers
generally not very difficult. If it should be in any situation you can
use this second method in this situation.
+@node Names, , Special cases, Sources
+@section Marking Proper Names for Translation
+
+Should names of persons, cities, locations etc. be marked for translation
+or not? People who only know languages that can be written with Latin
+letters (English, Spanish, French, German, etc.) are tempted to say ``no'',
+because names usually do not change when transported between these languages.
+However, in general when translating from one script to another, names
+are translated too, usually phonetically or by transliteration. For
+example, Russian or Greek names are converted to the Latin alphabet when
+being translated to English, and English or French names are converted
+to the Katakana script when being translated to Japanese. This is
+necessary because the speakers of the target language in general cannot
+read the script the name is originally written in.
+
+As a programmer, you should therefore make sure that names are marked
+for translation, with a special comment telling the translators that it
+is a proper name and how to pronounce it. Like this:
+
+@example
+@group
+printf (_("Written by %s.\n"),
+ /* TRANSLATORS: This is a proper name. See the gettext
+ manual, section Names. Note this is actually a non-ASCII
+ name: The first name is (with Unicode escapes)
+ "Fran\u00e7ois" or (with HTML entities) "François".
+ Pronounciation is like "fraa-swa pee-nar". */
+ _("Francois Pinard"));
+@end group
+@end example
+
+As a translator, you should use some care when translating names, because
+it is frustrating if people see their names mutilated or distorted. If
+your language uses the Latin script, all you need to do is to reproduce
+the name as perfectly as you can within the usual character set of your
+language. In this particular case, this means to provide a translation
+containing the c-cedilla character. If your language uses a different
+script and the people speaking it don't usually read Latin words, it means
+transliteration; but you should still give, in parentheses, the original
+writing of the name -- for the sake of the people that do read the Latin
+script. Here is an example, using Greek as the target script:
+
+@example
+@group
+#. This is a proper name. See the gettext
+#. manual, section Names. Note this is actually a non-ASCII
+#. name: The first name is (with Unicode escapes)
+#. "Fran\u00e7ois" or (with HTML entities) "François".
+#. Pronounciation is like "fraa-swa pee-nar".
+msgid "Francois Pinard"
+msgstr "\phi\rho\alpha\sigma\omicron\alpha \pi\iota\nu\alpha\rho"
+ " (Francois Pinard)"
+@end group
+@end example
+
+Because translation of names is such a sensitive domain, it is a good
+idea to test your translation before submitting it.
+
+The translation project @url{http://sourceforge.net/projects/translation}
+has set up a POT file and translation domain consisting of program author
+names, with better facilities for the translator than those presented here.
+Namely, there the original name is written directly in Unicode (rather
+than with Unicode escapes or HTML entities), and the pronounciation is
+denoted using the International Phonetic Alphabet (see
+@url{http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet}).
+
+However, we don't recommend this approach for all POT files in all packages,
+because this would force translators to use PO files in UTF-8 encoding,
+which is - in the current state of software (as of 2003) - a major hassle
+for translators using GNU Emacs or XEmacs with po-mode.
+
@node Template, Creating, Sources, Top
@chapter Making the PO Template File
@cindex PO template file
projects / thirdparty / gettext.git / commitdiff
