zone.tab corrections

[Andy McDonald]

>> From: Andy McDonald
>> Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 00:33:13 -0400
>> Subject: zone.tab corrections
> 
>> Ukrainian time zones Europe/Kiev, Europe/Uzhgorod and Europe/Zaporozhye:
>> These might better be named Europe/Kyiv, Europe/Uzhhorod and
>> Europe/Zaporizhia, being transliterations of the Ukrainian - rather than
>> Russian - place-names. Similarly, the comment for Europe/Zaporozhye
>> should perhaps be 'Zaporizhia, E Luhansk', rather than 'Zaporozh'ye, E
>> Lugansk'.
> 
> Yeah, but where does it end?
> In the former USSR a lot of local languages are spoken, only one of which is
> Ukrainian. To be consistent, one has to find out what other local languages
> are spoken in the other Russian timezones. And invent a transliteration
> scheme for those languages that don't have one yet.
> Better idea: the current practice, namely using the Russian names. In most
> former Russian republics people have learned the Russian language and still
> understand it. Hence: a transliteration from Russian names seems to be more
> practical.
> My proposition: don't change no nothing.....
> 

I have no strong personal feelings about this issue. However, looking at
the 2007f 'backward' file, precedents include

Link	Asia/Ashgabat		Asia/Ashkhabad
Link	Asia/Ulaanbaatar	Asia/Ulan_Bator

In both cases the zone name change was due to a change in
transliteration from Russian to the national language.

'Russian timezones' are time zones under the administration of Russia
(Asia/Yekaterinburg, Europe/Moscow, etc), not the former USSR. These
zones are named based on transliteration from Russian, or on the
standard English name for the city, as one would expect. Other nations
of the former USSR tend to be ethnically and linguistically distinct
from Russia (though Russian is often one of the two official languages);
 where there is only one official (non-Russian) language one would
expect the name of the time zone to reflect this. It's not hard to find
out what other local languages are spoken: Ukraine's official language
is Ukrainian, Moldova's is Moldovan, etc.

In the case that Russian is one of the official languages, I would agree
that no change is required. However this is distinct from the status of
Russian as being widely understood; certainly many people in the former
USSR understand Russian, but I would imagine that the average Ukrainian,
Moldovan, Tajik or Georgian would take issue with a transliteration from
Russian.