[freeciv-data] Re: Russian.ruleset

scripsit Eduardo M Kalinowski:

> I'd suggest two sets of city names: one "original name", as it's written 
> in the country. This would have names in Cyrillic, Greek, Japanese, 
> etc., and a "translitered name" using only ISO-8859-1 characters (but 
> probably encoded in UTF-8).

I don't see why we need to restrict ourselves to Latin-1 chars if we're
going to UTF-8, but I would restrict it to the Latin alphabet.  In other
words, I would like to be able to do Lódz properly (with the "slashed"
`l' and the "dotted" `z').  You will note that, since I have a Latin-1
locale, I can't do this currently . . .  I need the semester to finish
before I'll muck with anything on my box ;)

> Going further, the other suggestion could be adopted: the rulesets could 
> have only the original name, and gettext could somehow be used to 
> translate the names into the language that the player is using, so that 
> in Russian one would see "Москва" (no translation in this case), in 
> english "Moscow", in Portuguese "Moscou", and so on... And the same for 
> all other countries.

Hmm.  I would _not_ translate names, only because I will most often play
with an English locale, but I still want to see Moskva and Athínai, not
Moscow and Athens -- for that matter, I want to see Nürnberg, not
Nuremburg and al-Qahirah not Cairo.  And if we use UN or ISO
transcription/transcription, it can be done automatedly because both are
designed for computerized writing system conversion. 

What I'd really like to do (very long-term) is make available automated
translation for captured cities.  I tend to do this "manually" in games
I play.  In other words, if as the Greek player I capture New York, I
will be prompted to change the name to "Néa Yórki"; were I Russian, it
would give me "N'ju-Jork".  That, this geek thinks, would be über-cool.
But making up all those translation files would not be a small task.

(And to any another other Orthodox folks on the list, Christós anésti --
Happy Easter!)

-- 
Thanasis Kinias
Web Developer, Information Technology
Graduate Student, Department of History
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul