[Bug localedata/11630] Odd time separator in Swedish time format forsv_SE

["msv at kth dot se" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11630

MÃrten Svantesson <msv at kth dot se> changed:

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                 CC|                            |msv at kth dot se

--- Comment #5 from keld at keldix dot com <keld at keldix dot com> 2010-05-25 18:11:51 UTC ---
Subject: Re:  Odd time separator in Swedish time
 format for sv_SE

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 04:43:21PM -0000, pasky at suse dot cz wrote:
> 
> ------- Additional Comments From pasky at suse dot cz  2010-05-25 16:43 -------
> In the past, we had trouble with locale changes that were controversial, thus in
> case there are dissenting voices and the issue is ambiguous (e.g. common usage
> vs. standardization), we prefer to seek consensus. This is not to say this bug
> report should turn into a discussion forum, but you should first start a
> discussion among other Swedish GNU users in the appropriate venue and gathering
> feedback before pushing this further.
> 
> For starters, it would be good to have a feedback from the original locale
> author (if you can contact them) and the GNU sv translation team
> (http://translationproject.org/team/sv.html).

I may be be the original locale author. I was at least the initial author
of the swedish locale for glibc. 

I am not Swedish, but I am Danish, and live close to the Swedish border.
There is some discussion about ":" vs "." - and I have seen the
same discussion in Norway. And in Denmark. Some prefer the ":" some the "."
- language authorities tend to prefer the ".", while official standardization
organizations tend to prefer the ':'. 

The official orthography
specification, "Myndigheternas skrivregler" http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/108/a/33329 -
has the following specification:

> 9.2.2 Timmar, minuter och sekunder
> Om tiden ska anges i timmar, minuter och sekunder skriver man pÃ
> fÃljande sÃtt: Larmet registrerades kl. 14.02.36. BrÃkdelar av en se-
> kund skriver man pà detta sÃtt: FÃrloppet tog 2,25 sekunder.

In my translation  it shows that the "." is the delimiter for  hours and minutes.

In the entry in ISO 15897, which contains the ISO collection of POSIX locales,
the narrative spec says: http://std.dkuug.dk/cultreg/registrations/narrative/sv_SE,_1.0
The source is the official Swedish Institute for Standardization SIS, in its department
for Information Technology Standardization, ITS:

> Time before noon:
> 10:20 or 10.20
> 
> Time after noon:
> 17:40 or 17.40 

So both forms are specified. The colon form is specified first.

There is a Swedish standard for numerical specification of date and time, which
is based on ISO 8601. I think they have some deviations here, but not
in the hour:minute:second delimiters.

I think that both forms are understood and in widespread use in Sweden. 

I personally prefer the ":" because of the conflict with "." usage as
decimal point - inherited from American culture - which is threathening the usage
of the "," as the decimal delimiter, in most of continental Europe.

But I do not have a conclusion here. Do we follow official language authorities,
or do we follow official standardization authorities, or do we follow
some opinion amongst native translators of Open Source Software, or do we follow
users?  Or do we try to avoid to many changes in glibc?

Best regards
Keld


--- Comment #6 from MÃrten Svantesson <msv at kth dot se> 2011-03-25 10:17:08 UTC ---
Swedish is not a standardised language. So what should be considered the
correct usage is what people use the most. In this case colon is certainly used
the most as a separator when writing time.

As mentioned different institutions in Sweden have given different opinions in
the matter, so they are useless in deciding the matter.

The point for me is that I can't use glibc to localise time since it is
incorrect for Swedish.

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