Re: [PATCH][BZ #14879] Add ia_FR locale

[Chris Leonard <cjlhomeaddress at gmail dot com>]

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 2:20 AM, Andreas Jaeger <aj@suse.com> wrote:

> This is an artificial language but based on the comments by Jeff, I suggest
> to add it since it's not a "toy" language but used. Any objections or
> comments?

I have a few thoughts to share. First, I would like to thank Andreas
for bringing this issue to libc-alpha for discussion and comment, this
is a vast improvement over historical practices that should be left in
the past.

As a strong advocate for linguistic self-determination, I am entirely
supportive of including a locale for Interlingua in glibc (while
acknowledging that the challenge of selecting a "region" for a
constructed language in international use must be addressed in a
reasonable and rational fashion).  The choice of France for
Interlingua, acknowledging the state in which the leading organization
supporting it is incorporated seems reasonable.

In my opinion, the history of previous WONTFIX rejections for
languages with serious cultural and scientific merit, purposes and
constituencies were both arbitrary and capricious.

Esperanto
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=711
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=2135

Ido
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13190

Rejecting these languages because they are "artificial" is
antithetical to the concepts of freedom promoted by the GNOME
Foundation and it reflects poorly on GNOME that the personal biases of
one individual were allowed to hold sway for so long.

Creoles and pidgins are no less "artificial" languages (although far
less systematically defined)  than Esperanto or Interlingua, but I
have heard no objections to the existing ht_HT locale.  The
distinction between en_US and en_GB (as languages in most L10n
systems, not just locales) is equally artificial based on orthographic
and grammatical conventions, but both can co-exist in glibc and each
serves an important purpose in their own right.

The "slippery slope" argument that including Esperanto or Interlingua
or Lojban will require accepting Klingon or Elvish locales is
specious.  It is not that difficult to make a meaningful distinction
between serious languages with communities of practice and a hobbyist
fictional language only spoken at science fiction conventions.

It is long overdue for glibc to accept locales for languages like
Esperanto, Ido, Lojban and Interlingua when proposed instead of
rejecting them without any means of appealing the decision.

Warmest Regards,

cjl
Sugar Labs Translation Team Coordinator
Member, GNOME Foundation