Time Zone Localizations

Sat Jun 12 14:35:10 UTC 2004

It's strange. I responded to your message about 13 hours ago, but it 
doesn't show up yet... Let me try again (with a short version).

I believe you misunderstood my first question. It's simply an invalid 
assumption that a zone (in the Olson zoneinfo) represents a single time 
zone. How do you describe the following with the LDML spec, for example?

# Zone  NAME            GMTOFF  RULES   FORMAT  [UNTIL]
Zone    Asia/Singapore  6:55:25 -       LMT     1901 Jan  1
                        6:55:25 -       SMT     1905 Jun  1 # Singapore M.T.
                        7:00    -       MALT    1933 Jan  1 # Malaya Time
                        7:00    0:20    MALST   1936 Jan  1
                        7:20    -       MALT    1941 Sep  1
                        7:30    -       MALT    1942 Feb 16
                        9:00    -       JST     1945 Sep 12
                        7:30    -       MALT    1965 Aug  9 # independence
                        7:30    -       SGT     1982 Jan  1 # Singapore Time
                        8:00    -       SGT

If the given date is, for example, 1942-02-16, the local time zone name 
has to be "JST" (in the short form). I didn't think LDML would allow for 
defining historical time zone names. I didn't mean "historical" tome 
zone *IDs*. (I really don't understand "modern" and "historical" in your 
message, though. All of (most of?) the zones are modern. They just have 
their own history. And we just don't know what will happen to zones in 
the future. What you think is "modern" today might be "historical" 
tomorrow.)

Thanks,
Masayoshi

Mark Davis wrote:

>I don't know where you are getting that. They are *not* user-defined IDs. The
>text in http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/ defines the IDs as matching the IDs
>in ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/. See also
>http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data_formats.html#Display_Names also.
>
>Mark
>__________________________________
>http://www.macchiato.com
>► शिष्यादिच्छेत्पराजयम् ◄
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Masayoshi Okutsu" <Masayoshi.Okutsu at Sun.COM>
>To: "Mark Davis" <mark.davis at jtcsv.com>
>Cc: <tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov>
>Sent: Fri, 2004 Jun 11 08:41
>Subject: Re: Time Zone Localizations
>
>
>Mark Davis wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Actually, this is directly related, since LDML is the format used for CLDR.
>>However, the comment is based on a misunderstanding: LDML currently does allow
>>for translation of *all* of the timezone IDs, modern and historical.
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>I guess you don't translate timezone IDs... Anyway, do you mean that
>LDML allows users to define DTD? (Sorry if this is not a correct way to
>talk about XML...) So the syntax of <zone> is really user-defined?
>
>Thanks,
>Masayoshi
>
>  
>
>>The problems we are trying to address with this proposal are that the sheer
>>volume of translations is difficult to manage, *and* many languages just don't
>>have corresponding terms. And we didn't give guidance before as to which IDs
>>were the most important to translate, so the translations that are in CLDR were
>>not done in any kind of priority order.
>>
>>Mark
>>__________________________________
>>http://www.macchiato.com
>>► शिष्यादिच्छेत्पराजयम् ◄
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>From: "Masayoshi Okutsu" <Masayoshi.Okutsu at Sun.COM>
>>To: "Mark Davis" <mark.davis at jtcsv.com>
>>Cc: <tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov>
>>Sent: Fri, 2004 Jun 11 06:43
>>Subject: Re: Time Zone Localizations
>>
>>
>>This is a bit off from the proposal, but related to time zone localizations.
>>
>>It appears that the Locale Data Markup Language spec for <timeZoneNames>
>>(http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/#%3CtimeZoneNames%3E) assumes that
>>a time zone has a single set of long and short names, which assumption
>>is not valid if a system supports historical time zone changes.
>>Actually, the time zone support in Java has this problem because it
>>supports historical changes since 1.4 and always display the "latest"
>>time zone names. I planned to fix it in J2SE 1.5 (a.k.a. Tiger), but I
>>couldn't due to another commitment.
>>
>>Is it possible for CLDR to make corrections to the <timeZoneNames> spec
>>so that it can represent all historical name changes?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>--
>>Masayoshi Okutsu
>>Java Internationalization
>>Sun Microsystems (K.K.)
>>
>>Mark Davis wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>The common locale data repository project (CLDR) hosted by the Unicode
>>>consortium (www.unicode.org/cldr/) provides for translations of time zone IDs,
>>>based on the public domain time zone database at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/.
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>A
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>>>number of issues have come up concerning those translations, and we have put
>>>together a proposal for changing the way that is done. The goal would be to
>>>
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>>make
>>
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>>>changes in CLDR 1.1, which would be released around mid-October of this year.
>>>The current version of the proposal is at:
>>>
>>>http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/~checkout~/icuhtml/design/formatting/time_
>>>      
>>>
>z
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>>one_localization.html
>>
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>>
>>>I'd very much appreciate any feedback on the proposal.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>__________________________________
>>>http://www.macchiato.com
>>>► शिष्यादिच्छेत्पराजयम् ◄
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
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