Time Zone abbreviations in Brazil

Paul Eggert eggert at twinsun.com
Sun Jun 27 07:59:49 UTC 1999


   From:	Daniel C. Sobral [SMTP:dcs at newsguy.com]
   Sent:	Wednesday, February 03, 1999 8:18 AM
   To:	tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov

   I'd like to point out that what you call "Zone America/Sao_Paulo",
   the brazilian "legal time", is actually known as _Brasilia_ time
   zone in Brazil.

The Zone labels are largely independent of what people call time time
zones; they merely name the most populous location that uses that
particular rule set.  (It may seem a bit odd at first that the
`America/Sao_Paulo' label identifies Brasilia time, but
`America/Los_Angeles' identifies Pacific time, so it's just as odd for
me.  :-)

However, it sounds like the abbreviations used in the Brazilian rules
are incorrect.  These abbreviations, shown below, are purely our
invention.  I'd like to fix them so that they abbreviate the English
translations of the names actually in use in Brazil.

#	-2:00	FST	FDT	Fernando de Noronha
#	-3:00	EST	EDT	Eastern Brazil
#	-4:00	WST	WDT	Western Brazil
#	-5:00	AST	ADT	Acre

If the people in Brazil call it `Brasilia time', then the abbreviation
should be fixed to reflect this.  In another message you wrote that
people use the Portuguese equivalent of `Brasilia time' and `Brasilia
summer time' (the UK style), as opposed to the US style that the tz
tables are currently using.  So I suppose the abbreviations should be
changed from EST and EDT to BRT and BRST (for `Brasilia Time' and
`Brasilia Summer Time').

What names do Brazilians use for the time zones other than Brasilia?

(Sorry I took so long to answer; I've been swamped.)



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