Re: How to add crh.po, and tt@iqtel locale's .po for gettext

[Bruno Haible <bruno at clisp dot org>]

Hello,

Reshat Sabiq (Res,at) asked:
> I'm planning on doing Crieam Tatar IQTElif-based (a version of Latin
> alphabet for Tatar) Qazan Tatar localizations, and would appreciate
> any feedback on the process for adding crh.po and  tt@iqtel.po.

Assuming you want this for a glibc system (e.g. Linux), the first step is
to create a glibc locale for it. This is unfortunately also one of the
hardest steps, but it is the basis for the entire system. You find some
tips about it at
  http://www.student.uit.no/~pere/linux/glibc/howto.html
When your locale works fine, you are encouraged to submit it to the
glibc maintainers for inclusion.

You "compile" the locale using the localedef utility, and start using it
by setting the LANG or LC_ALL environment variable, as described in
gettext's ABOUT-NLS file.

Then you can already start creating localised PO files, "compile" them
using msgfmt, and install them in the locations (typically
/usr/share/locale/... or /usr/local/share/locale/...) where the programs
will expect it.

You should also contact the translation projects (the Free Translation
Project at http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/translation/, the KDE localization
project, the GNOME localization project) and register with them, so that
someone else with the same ideas as you will be aware of your work and
not make duplicated efforts.

Finally, a small note about "crh": According to
  http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2003-May/000969.html
  http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=crh
Crimean Turkish is written in Cyrillic script. If you want to provide a
locale that uses the Latin script for it, you should call it crh@latin;
if you want to provide a locale that uses the IQTELif script, you should
call it crh@iqtelif (not crh@iqtel - the glibc maintainers don't want
abbreviations here). Even if a "crh" locale with Cyrillic script does
not yet exist.

Bruno