Request: Kurdish locale / Ispell

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Erdal Ronahi wrote:

> Our problems concern the locale. Ubuntu does not yet support
> the locale ku_TR (Kurdish in Turkey), which is the most important locale
> for us. 

We can definitely fix this. Jordi, could you make up a patch for the
relevant Ubuntu package to include the ku_TR locale?

Ardal, is there a specific reason to use ku_TR rather than plain ku?
Would your team likely be the primary Kurdish translation team globally?
Would your translations be the best thing for an Iraqi Kurd (or Kurdish
Iraqi ;-) to view, in the absence of something specifically for them? In
general, we encourage people to get the "general" language fully
translated before focusing on country-specific dialects.

The big exception to that, so far, is pt_BR, which is substantially
different to pt, and so we encourage it to be translated separately.

> get the locale. There is, however a working locale in Mandriva, which
> has been used for two years now. So it should be possible in Ubuntu (and

OK, we should follow their lead and maintain compatibility with the way
they have done the locale, to avoid spurious deltas and make the
translations as widely useful as possible.

> Another issue is the fact that a Kurdish Ispell/Aspell/MySpell package
> exists. It works in OpenOffice, Abiword and other programs and can be
> included at once into Ubuntu. If necessary I can file a bug for this
> issue.

Yes, please do that. Please ping doko on the #ubuntu-devel channel and
ask him who the best person to handle the spelling package is, too.

> You guys at Ubuntu are doing a fabulous job, and our team is struggling
> to make Ubuntu the number one distribution for Kurdish-speaking users,
> too.

It makes me very proud that Ubuntu might help in your community too.
Your efforts are as much a part of the project as those of a core dev -
so don't be shy of the struggle, and hopefully we can at least make this
part easier for you. If you start translating then you're one of "you
guys at Ubuntu". Sign up to become a member
(https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntumembers/ is a good place to start)
so your voice will be heard, you get an @ubuntu.com email and a vote for
issues that the community council takes to members.

Mark