[tz] Request for change to the tz database

Robert Elz kre at munnari.OZ.AU
Tue Feb 9 00:07:29 UTC 2021


    Date:        Mon, 8 Feb 2021 14:28:24 -0800
    From:        Guy Harris <gharris at sonic.net>
    Message-ID:  <90554020-92B9-46CA-83DF-AC914E612DBE at sonic.net>

  | None; the issue is that the city names are *English-language* city names,

Yes.

  | and should reflect the most common English-language transliteration
  | of non-English-language names.

But not that.

English names (whatever they are of) do not need transliterating into English,
they already are.  For some places English uses what are (effectively)
transliterations of the local name, for others, the name isn't even similar
Bangkok's name in Thai transliterates as Krungthep[MaHa.....] (it keeps
going, it is a very long name, but is most commonly abbreviated to Krungthep)
(the leading K is pronounced like a G in English).   In tz we use Bangkok,
as that's the English name.

I don't much care what Kiev/Kyiv is called in English (Kiev is what it
has always been to me, and will probably remain that way, but it isn't
as if I use the name anywhere other than here).    However, the content
of recent messages makes it appear that someone has started a campaign
("Please help get the name changed, by sending e-mail to... and in it
say ...").   Because of that I am (for now) opposed to making any change
at all to this one (and I don't care what Google, or various newspapers,
etc, have decided to do).   If we start paying attention to this kind
of thing we're simply inviting it to happen again.   So say, "Sorry, no,
your campaign has caused us to decide to retain the current name" and
nothing else.

kre




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