Re: Latin Belarusian

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Ihar,

> Yes, there is a half-workable script that can do some conversion work
> automatically though there are some circumstances that prevent fully
> automized conversion. ...
> That's why it would be great to distribute conversion script with
> gettext-tools package though I'm absolutely sure that we shouldn't use it
> for automatic conversion. There are Ruby scripts in attachement that are
> capable to do the conversion (into both sides). Should it be rewritten into
> any other language to be distributable with main gettext package? Then what
> language is it?

I can rewrite these conversion rules to a C program 'recode-be-latin'.
It's quite simple.

> There are also some problems
> with po-messages where a word is divided by shortcut symbol (like
> "Raści_ahni") that will be converted incorrectly (like "Расьці_агні", not
> "Расьц_ягні")

Good point. I had not thought of this. Putting it on my TODO list.

> And the last and - maybe - the largest problem is that Latin and Cyrillic
> communities have different views on some fundamental l10n questions (f.e.
> what kind of form to use when translating commands like "Close" -
> "Зачыніць/Закрыць" or "Зачыні/Закрый" (infinitive or imperative), different
> terminology and so on.

But should the input to the script follow the modern Cyrillic orthography,
or the Tarashk orthography? That's something worth documenting in the manual.

Bruno