Use correct spelling for "Kyrgyz" in language list

Well, we need to change the language code from 'ky' to 'kg'. Because 'ky' is a two-letter denomination of Cayman Islands: http://www.controloye.com/whois/ky.php Lot's of websites in Kyrgyzstan use 'kg' denomination in URL-addresses, not 'ky'. In fact nobody in Kyrgyzstan will agree or accept 'ky' abbreviation, so it will be very much confusing for website developers when they install Kyrgyz language in Drupal to see unusual path. It can negatively effect user's impression of Drupal. I believe if some codes were adopted by mistake in the past, Drupal should not repeat them.

Guys, you saved many Drupallers from Kyrgyzstan from frustration because of wrong language code. Thanks for committing!

Generally, a language code matches a respective country code. However, several codes for the national languages in officially adopted language code (ISO639:2000) have been confused. I asked this question before, but since unanswered have to repeat it once again:

Does Drupal have to repeat mistakes, which happened during adoption of language codes in the past? Could Drupal use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1 instead ISO639, which contains several mismatches between country codes and language codes?

Those several nations with mismatched language codes are small ones, they even don't have browsers on their own languages, so it woud not matter. However, I see your point that Drupal should follow industry standards. Probably, the right thing to correct this unfortunate mistake is to appeal to the "upstream branch" - International Standard Organization, though it will be very much hard to get an international standard changed.

azatkooman,

I believe you don't want to understand that we are talking here exactly in the context of languages. So when you see "English" in the list of the languages in Drupal it means not a man, person or any other noun, but what it exactly is a descriptive objective. Which is Кыргызча for Kyrgyz language. This rule is true for all the languages of turkic group of the languages. They all need -ча, -че, -ça, -çe suffixes in the end of language names. Examples are in already accepted language names in Drupal: Türkçe, Tatarça, Azerice, etc.

We have to follow linguistic norms here, not subjective speculations of who knows whom. So please don't spoil the name of Kyrgyz Language. The native name for Kyrgyz language is Kırgıça or in cyrillic Кыргызча and by no means you can call the language Кыргыз, though calling the language Kyrgyz in English is legitimate. But you have to clearly understand the Kyrgyz is only English name for the language, and that native name for the language is Кыргызча or Kırgıça with "ча" or "ça" in the end. This is so obvious that I am really surprised how difficult for some people to grasp the concept.

Please do not commit patches related to languages from anyone. This is important and sensitive matter. Let the people with linguistic background deal with this kind of matters.

Reposting from http://drupal.org/node/1028642#comment-5464910:

Gabor,

If you doubt, please see our efforts to put this right in upstream Linux community: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17505, https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21451. We are dealing with Kyrgyz language since long.

Please look at http://ky.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кыргыз_тили - they call it, the language, "Kyrgyz" in English, but they never say Кыргыз in Kyrgyz language. They call it either Кыргызча or Кыргыз тили. I am native Kyrgyz myself. And believe me I know how my language is called in my native language. Simple rule - all the languages in turkic group add ча, че, ша or ça, çe, şa as suffixes in the end. You jus look at the list of the languages on the left block on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_languages. I will list some of turkic languages:

Azərbaycanca (alternatively Azerbaycan dili)
Башҡортча (alternatively Башҡорт тили)
Қазақша (alternatıvely Қазақ тілі)
Кыргызча (alternatively Кыргыз тили)
Türkçe (alternatively Türk dili)
Татарча/Tatarça (alternatively Татар теле)
Uyghurche‎ (alternatively Uygur dili)

And I know that even your mother tongue is a member of Uralo Altaic group of languages and that ancestors of great Huns call their language not just Magyar, but Magyar nyelv. We, turkic people, call your language either Magar tili or Majarcha, Majarça.

Now go to any Drupal site and hit 'admin/settings/language/add', an then expand 'Custom language' and read: 'Language name in English' which is in our case 'Kyrgyz'. And then read next line: 'Native language name' and the explanation below the field: 'Name of the language in the language being added.'!!!!!!!!!

You, guys, a re going to screw up Drupal by confusing endonym with exonym. Want to know little bit more? Please read about the difference between them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym

You may well call Kyrgyz language KYRGYZ in English, but in native language it never can be called just Kyrgyz (Кыргыз), it necessarily should be called Kyrgyzcha, Kırgızça, Кыргызча or Кыргыз тили, Kırgız tili.

Russian occupation screwed up many minds, we call persons with such minds Mankurts (http://www.freeman.org/m_online/may99/shusteff1.htm), those who forgot their own essence and nature up to that extend when they don't know who they really are. Let's not make Drupal - Mankurt CMS in the eyes of those who really care and pay attention to this kind of sensitive matters. Let's not go too much into politics. But you just do little bit research before going to name my language in my language Кыргыз. That will be a shame! I am Кыргыз as a person, however I am ready to give away my head to be cut on guillotine, but I insist that my language in my mother tongue should be called Кыргызча!!!!!!!

This is getting way too much ridiculous. Maybe I should address Dries himself?

Gabor,

Indeed the issue is little bit sensitive. I am pretty sure you also would raise your voice if in of the most popular CMS of the world they were going to give a wrong name to your mother tongue. And it is not that I am bashing everybody else or trying to jump over your head to Dries. I do know your role, contribution and your weight in the community, but I feel helpless when I tried to explain almost a year ago that the administration of the language had been given to a wrong person, who occasionally registered in Drupal.org and sold you all the previous Kyrgyz translation efforts of the Drupal made by our group as his own. And the problem was not only that you bought it, but also that despite our appeals you sent us to azatkooman and he never replied. What can one do when the language admin ignores your requests, the person who is administrative on him also ignores you?

Decisions should be based on sanity, and I am pretty much sure it would be perfectly sane if you would take a look who on drupal.org had been dealing with the issues related to Kyrgyz language and, at least, would consult such persons before just handing the administrative rights of the language group to a new occasional guy, who rarely participates in the community, moreover demonstrates complete incompetence both in complying with basic ethical norms like truthfully disclose required information (on where his got the translation http://drupal.org/node/1028642#comment-5459158) and in linguistic matters like to confuse endonym with exonym.

Now coming right into the matter of the subject, could you please refer to any International standard calling Kyrgyz language 'Кыргыз' in Kyrgyz language? International standards never dealt and never could deal with the ways how native people call their languages in their own languages! And I tried to demonstrate that one of the two names in Drupal is endonym. The first one is always English name for the language, which is in our case 'Kyrgyz', but the second one is endonym, that is how native speakers of a language name their language in their mother tongue.

We referenced several ISO standards on [495030] discussing Kyrgyz Language, and they are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-2
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php

and found out they are all about country codes, geographical areas, one of them dealt with language code, but none of them standardized how native people should name their languages on their own mother tongues. And it would be ridiculous if any International body tried that.

And to say frankly I find it ridiculous you are trying to find consensus between only two people: one myself, Drupal.org user since long time, who started translation of Drupal.org into Kyrgyz back in 2003, initiated several discussions regarding the language and the other is a pop-up guy who registered on Drupal.org in the beginning of 2011 just to take over the language group, no any single contribution to the community, who stole previous translations of the language and sold to you as his own. Is consensus should be sought in this kind of cases at all? Maybe you should require compliance with simple ethics first among two people before seeking consensus between them?

clean up