Summary of the review comments
 

Monica Ståhl	approval with comment
Marc Küster	approval with comments
Keld Simonsen	approval
Klaas Ruppel	approval with comment
Michael Everson	comments
Yanis Maistros	comments and suggestions
V.S. Umamaheswaran and Baldev Soor	comments
Marion Gunn	comments
Þorvarður Kári Ólafsson	comments

 

Monica Ståhl

I have looked through the draft on Eurolocale and want to approve it with the following comment.

Add a "T" between the date and the time According to ISO 8601 on page 10 in "Abbreviated date and time: 19996-04-28 17:22:06"

Response: This was discussed in the workshop, and it was agreed not to introduce the "T". A note on theis effect will be added, saying that the date and time format is a combination of the date format and the time format in ISO 8601, as opposed to the combined day-and-time format of said standard.
 
 

Marc Wilhelm Küster

Vote: Approval with comments

The draft is convincing, readable and clear. My comments are only on minor points which should be easy to incorporate.

Comments:

1.) General:

- change "sorting" to "ordering" throughout

Response: accepted.

- add "Cf. note 3" add the end of Note 5

Response: accepted

- align terminology on p. 9: "3-letter currency *symbol*" vs.

"3-letter currency *code*"

Response: accepted. See also response to V.S. Umamaheswaran and Baldev Soor

- some very minor points (spelling etc.) will be communicated directly to the editor

Response: received and accepted.

- Add a note to Annex A to the effect that the repertoire there will be that of the final CWA on the MES (of course, moot if MES CWA finalized prior to Eurolocale)

Response:  The final draft for MES is now out for ballot, and we will rely on that being accepted.

2.) Concerning German locale:

According to the new Duden ("Die deutsche Rechtschreibung. Das Standardwerk zu allen Fragen der Rechtschreibung. Auf der Grundlage der neuen amtlichen Rechtschreibregeln." Mannheim, 1996) the correct abbreviations for weekdays and months are:

Weekdays:
So.
Mo.
Di.
Mi.
Do.
Fr.
Sa.

Months:
Jan.
Febr.
März
Apr.
Mai
Juni
Juli
Aug.
Sept.
Okt.
Nov.
Dez.
 

The "abbreviation point" is explicitely listed in the Duden, though I would be inclined to regard it as optional.

(Some of these abbreviations are rather astonishing even for a German, but they are the official rule).

Response: accepted
--

Keld Simonsen
 

My vote on the eurolocale CWA is "yes"
 

Klaas Ruppel

Yes.

Comment on 4.1.4:

The document says "no space" between domestic currency symbol and amount. Although I have learned that the dollar and pound signs are used this way, I see no advantages in this usage. Probable disadvantages:

- reading and recognition of amounts is needlessly difficult for humans

- reading and recognition of amounts by machines may need special software to extract the actual amount from the string

- when the currency sign is replaced by single E, special software may be needed to make sure that this character is not a xdigit

Response: not accepted. This issue has been discussed in the workshop, and the specification in the draft was preferred over the specific solution offered by Klaas Ruppel.

Michael Everson

In the Eurolocale section 4.2.8 The introductory text should read:

"Names of days and names of months are written with initial capital letters on significant elements. The article _na_ is not capitalized when it occurs within names, nor are initial mutations, such as the _h_ in _Dé hAoine_."

The text on Yes and No expressions is misleading. It states that the language has a computing convention that allows for tT+yYoOjJsS for yes and cC-nN for no.

This is incorrect. The text should read:

==========

Affirmative expression

There is no single word for "yes" in Irish Gaelic. Affirmative answers repeat an appropriate form of the verb used in asking the question. There is thus no limited set of letters which can be associated with affirmative responses. In the case of questions phrased using the present tense of one of the two verbs "to be" (recommended in software localization), the affirmative responses will be Tá, Sea, Sé, Sí, Is ea, Is é, Is í, depending on context. The letters T, S, I, Y (Yes ), and the digit 1 should be accepted.

Negative expression

There is no single word for "no" in Irish Gaelic. Negative answers consist of a form of one of the negative particles (n? or cha), followed by a form of the verb used in asking the question. In the case of questions phrased using the present tense of one of the two verbs "to be" (recommended in software localization), the negative responses will be Níl, Chan fhuil, Ní hea, Ní hé, Ní hí, Chan ea, Chan é, Chan í, depending on context. The letters N, C, and the digit 0 should be accepted.

==========

The use of O for Oui and J for Ja is not a computing convention for Irish.. Since capital letters come before small ones in ordering Irish, the strings should appear TtSsYy+ and CcNn- in any case.

Response: accepted in principle. "oui" and "ja" are common affirmative answers in the mulitilingual environments of pan-European institutions, and these answeres are thus retained.
--

Yanis Maistros

Ballot on WD22 for European default locale
 

Comments and Suggestions

e-mail: maistros@cs.ntua.gr, tel: +301-772.2510, fax: +301-772.2321

Upper – Lower Case - accents and "dialytika"

Since this character classification is to be used in regular expressions' processing it is apparent that functions toupper() and tolower(), among others, are to be used as the default mapping mechanism.

Lower case letter folding into their corresponding upper case, and vice-versa, is not necessarily a reversible process (cf. NOTE 5, paragraph 4.1.2)

This irreversible folding applies to all accented vowels (in MES 2) of Greek words. The accent is always placed when a word is written in lower case whereas no accent is added when the word is written in full capital case. On the other hand DIALYTIKA are always placed in both lower and capital case. Consider for example the following Greek words in both small and capital case:

Response: accepted

String delimiters

I wish to highlight a point on strings and their delimiters. Greek words treated as strings in a data processing environment require a precausious handling, because there are characters which have to be treated as word internals, and not as word or string delimitiers:

• GREEK CORONIS (1FBD) which is a combining character and is put over a contracted syllable following the effect of crasis. It is comparable in behaviour to the diacritic marks (e.g. PSILI: Lenis breath).
• GREEK YPODIASTOLI (",") which is treated as a word internal character, or a member of a string, and not a word delimiter. It is used at the word "ü,ôé" (anaphoric adverb, meaning whatever) "ü <YPODIASTOLI> ôé"
• NBSP (00A0), which is also treated as a word internal character, or a member of a string, and not a word delimiter. It is often used at the word "ü,ôé" (anaphoric adverb, meaning whatever) instead of YPODIASTOLI: "ü <NBSP> ôé".
• APOSTROPHUS or APOSTROPHE (0027) which is put over the consonant left following the effect of elision (final vowel rejection). A comparable side-effect is faced at the plural number of English words ending in 's'. E.g.: "students' marks".
• GREEK PROSGEGRAMMENI (1FBE) the former LETTER IOTA SUBSCRIPTED which is treated as a diacritical mark for the capital case vowels ALPHA, ETA and OMEGA. Treatment of this symbol has to be the same as for GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI (037A)

To conclude I would rather suggest the definition of a new set of characters to be called either letter-like characters or, more specifically, word-internal characters (which may vary in different cultures). If my suggestion is approved then the class "alpha" will be defined as the union of the sets: "letter" + "ligature" + "letter-like".

Response: accepted, as members of class alpha. APOSTROPHE is still a "punct", though, to align with established practice, in POSIX, TR 14652 and Unicode.

2. Numeric formatting (cf. paragraph 4.1.3)

The relevant declaration should be rephrased as follows:

"The positive number either has no sign attached to it or is preceded by a PLUS <+> without space."

Response: The issue was discussed in the Workshop and it was decided not to use the PLUS sign <

3. Monetary formatting (cf. paragraph 4.1.4)

The same comment as in paragraph 4.1.3:

"The positive monetary amount either has no sign attached to it or is preceded by a PLUS <+> without space."

Response: The issue was discussed in the Workshop and it was decided not to use the PLUS sign

4. Greek weekday and month names (cf. paragraph 4.2.3)

Weekday and month names (proper names) are written either all in capital letters or have their first letter capitalised.

(*) Abbreviations written in small case are formally delimited by an «abbreviation dot». Thus, the abbreviation of Áýãïõóôïò is «Áýã». and that of Ôñßôç is «Ôñ.».

(***) June and July names (Éïýíéïò and Éïýëéïò) cannot be differentiated using their first 3-letter part. We may differentiate these two month names using a 4-letter lexeme: Éïýí. (nominative, with accent)- Éïõí. (genitive, without accent) and Éïýë. (nominative, with accent) - Éïõë. (genitive, without accent). As an alternative, if we insist restricting abbreviations up to 3 letters the only possible solution will be the use of the Greek double letter 'ïõ' (ligature: 'OMICRON' + 'YPSILON') proposed at positions 03F4 (capital case) and 03F5 (small case). This last alternative is proposed because changing the names of these two months (into «Éïí». and «Éïë». respectively) is against Greek cultural tradition.

Month names in dates appear only in genitive case, e.g.: «27 Áõãïýóôïõ 1999» and not «27 Áýãïõóôïò 1999». This affects all full names of months and the abbreviations of the month names: March, May, June, July, August and November (cf. the following table).

Weekday names:

Sunday ÊõñéáêÞ or ÊÕÑÉÁÊÇ Êõñ. or ÊÕÑ

Monday ÄåõôÝñá or ÄÅÕÔÅÑÁ Äåõ. or ÄÅÕ

Tuesday Ôñßôç or ÔÑÉÔÇ Ôñ. or ÔÑ

Wednesday ÔåôÜñôç or ÔÅÔÁÑÔÇ Ôåô. or ÔÅÔ

Thursday ÐÝìðôç or ÐÅÌÐÔÇ ÐÝì. or ÐÅÌ

Friday ÐáñáóêåõÞ or ÐÁÑÁÓÊÅÕÇ Ðáñ . or ÐÁÑ

Saturday ÓÜââáôï or ÓÁÂÂÁÔÏ ÓÜâ. or ÓÁÂ

Response: Acepted, with the versions that only has the first letter capitalized

V.S. Umamaheswaran and Baldev Soor
 
 

Myself and Baldev Soor have reviewed the WD22 on European Default Locale. Within the agreed upon scope of the CWA we found it is technically sound. However, the document needs editorially considerable improvement. We offer the attached comments towards improving the document to a higher quality and more precise CWA.

====================

Comments from V.S. Umamaheswaran and Baldev Soor, IBM, NLTC, Toronto Lab.

Title: WD22 for European default locale

Date: 1999-06-27

1. Introduction, 3rd Para, 2nd sentence

The CEN/ISSS Eurolocale workshop was created in part to generate these generic specifications with this CEN Workshop Agreement.

Rephrase to read:

The CEN/ISSS . . . . . . . specifications in the form of this CEN Workshop . . .

Response: accepted.

2. Introduction, 3rd Para, 3rd sentence

Provisions to make easy use of this to modify it into national specifications is provided in ISO/IEC 15897 Procedures for registration of cultural elements.

Rephrase to read:

Provisions to make easy use of these generic specifications to create national . . .

Response: accepted.

3. Introduction, 4th Para, last part..

There are both . . . . the European Union and EFTA, namely Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish.

Sort the list of locale names -- Danish, German, .. .. Swedish -- in English Alphabetical Order (the language of this document). Danish will still be the first one on the list, followed by Dutch, English, Finnish, French etc.

Sections 4.2.1 through 4.2.14 should be rearranged in the above sorted order.

Response: The list is ordered in the order of the ISO 639 names for the languages. This will be clarified.

4. Introduction, 5th Para, First sentence

Some cultural conventions specified in the generic pan-European specification, such as date, and messages formats are normally culturally or language dependent. Rephrase to read:

Some . . . such as date, weekday names, or affirmative and negative answer formats are . .(messages formats are NOT in included in this work shop document at this time. The rephrasing tells exactly what is included.)

Response: accepted.

4. Introduction, 5th Para, Second sentence

The language-independent specifications are mainly of interest for certain documents in truly multicultural environments, such as in institutions of the European Union.

(Please give an example of certain documents).

. . . certain documents such as - - - - - - -.

Response: accepted.

5. Introduction, 5th Para, Second sentence

Some of the cultural conventions have been completely replaced in the language specific specifications of this CWA.

Rephrase to read:

Some of the cultural conventions defined in the generic specification . . . completely redefined in the language-specific . . .

(Please check hyphens -- not sure if language specific should be language-specific in the above contexts of use. Check and correct as appropriate elsewhere in the document also.)

Response: accepted.

6. Introduction, 5th Para, Third sentence

The other cultural conventions in these language specific specifications, such as sorting, monetary formatting and numeric formatting may also need to be replaced for use in purely national environments.

Rephrase to read:

The other . . . need to be replaced by the specific national requirements for use in . .

Response: accepted.

7. References - additions

Please add ISO/IEC 10646-1: 1993 and its amendments as a reference. Also the EOR output, the pre-standard on Ordering Rules, which we presume will be the default sorting for inclusion by reference in the European Default Locale.

Response: accepted.

8. Section 4 - First paragraph, first sentence

The cultural elements for computer use are on may different elements of the computer use, such as sorting, character classification, and time and date rendering.

Rephrase to read:

The cultural . . are on many different elements . . .

Response: accepted.

9. Section 4 - First paragraph, second sentence

Each of the elements may be dependent on things like language, culture and habits.

Rephrase to change "habits" to "conventions".

Response:  accepted in principle. "conventions" are used synonymeous to "elements" in SC22/WG20 and this would then be a self-referencing definition. The word "customs" will be used instead.

10. Section 4 - First paragraph, third sentence

Out of the many cultural elements a given set of elements, and with each element having a specific value need to be chosen for a given application to run.

Rephrase to read:

Out of the many . . . . of elements, with each . . . specific value, needs to be . . .

Response: accepted.

11. Section 4 - Second paragraph, first sentence

Some values for a set of cultural elements may be of a generic language-independent and mostly culture-independent nature, while other elements are inherent language-dependent.

Rephrase to read:

Some values . . . are inherently language dependent. (not sure of the hyphens..)

Response: accepted.

12. Section 4.1 - first paragraph, first sentence

Language-independent cultural elements described in this CWA are: alphanumeric deterministic ordering, classification of characters, numeric formatting, monetary formatting, and date and time formatting.

(Please enclose each of the element in single quote -- 'alphanumeric deterministic ordering', 'classification of . .', etc.)

Response: accepted.

13. Section 4.1 - first paragraph, second sentence

In addition, some information on elements that are normally language dependent, is given in a language-independent manner, that may be useful in some pan-European environments, and also completes the set of cultural elements dealt with in this CWA.

Rephrase:

(Check use of 'that' versus 'which')

In addition, . . . . in a language-independent manner, which may be useful in some pan-European environments. These elements are 'weekday names', 'month names', and 'affirmative and negative answers', and together with the language-independent elements complete the set of . . .

Response: accepted in principle.

14. Section 4.1.1

The ordering of strings is the ordering defined in the Prestandard European Ordering Rules.

Comment:

The prestandard on European Ordering Rules should be in the references. And please insert the correct title for 'Prestandard European Ordering Rules' here.

Response: accepted.

15. Section 4.1.2 - first paragraph

The locale specifies a number of classifications of the characters in the MES-2:

Rephrase:

The locale . . classifications (per definitions in ISO 9945-2 ?? or ISO 15897 ??) of . .

(The rest of section 4.1.2 -- we presume the editor has copied the definitions from the appropriate ISO standard than paraphrasing it, and end up in potentially changing the meaning of the classes. We leave this assurance to the competence of the editor.)

Response: accepted.

16. Section 4.1.2 - Note 1

NOTE 1: This also caters for scripts without a distinction between CAPITAL and SMALL, or other distinctions.

Rephrase:

NOTE 1: This class also . . .

Response: It is actually this "rule".

17. Section 4.1.3 Numeric formatting

A negative number is preceded by a HYPHEN-MINUS <-> without space between them.

Rephrase to:

A negative . . . .without any intervening space.

Response: accepted

18. Section 4.1.3 Monetary formatting

The name of the currency is "Euro", subdivided into 100 "cent".

Check:

. . . into 100 "cent"-s (plural?)

Response: There is a plural "s" .

19. Section 4.1.3 Monetary formatting

A negative monetary amount is preceded by a HYPHEN-MINUS <-> in front of the currency symbol without space between them.

Rephrase:

. . . without any intervening space.

Response: accepted.

20. Section 4.1.3 Monetary formatting

The terminology of international currency symbol, the domestic currency symbol, the three letter currency code, the currency symbol -- are inconsistently used in the remainder of this section. This has to be fixed.

Change 'international currency symbol' to '3-letter currency code', and 'domestic currency symbol' to 'currency symbol' wherever they occur in the following text.

The 3-letter currency symbol according to ISO 4217 is: EUR

The domestic currency symbols is: (Euro Sign is here in the text)

Both the international currency symbol and the domestic currency symbol are placed in front of the monetary amount and one NO-BREAK SPACE separates the international currency symbol and the monetary amount, while no space comes between the domestic

currency symbol and the amount.

Examples of formatting of monetary amounts:

3-letter ISO 4217 currency code: EUR 543,21

Domestic currency symbol: C=543,21

NOTE 3: The ISO 4217 code is called the "international currency symbol" in the ISO/IEC 9945 POSIX standards.

Rephrase to read: The 'ISO 4217 3-letter currency code' . . .

Response: accepted.

21. Section 4.1.5 Date and time conventions

The following specification is quite artificial in order to remove any language dependence and its general use is not encouraged. The data follows specifications of ISO 8601. In a pan-European document written in a given language, the corresponding language locale should be used to replace these values.

Change:

. . . language locale should be . . . to . . language-dependent locale should . .

Response: accepted.

22. Section 4.2.1 through 4.2.14

Please reorder sections 4.2.1 through 4.2.14 sorted on the names of locales used. Since this CWA is in English, I presume English order should be used.

Response: The order is following ISO 639 language codes, and this will be clarified.

23. Section 4.2.3 Greek

In section 4.2.3, Greek (quoted below), the letter N appears both in the YES expression (uppercasing of NU) and in the NO expression (uppercase of n). Is this CORRECT? If so an explanatory note is needed. The U+xxxx id should be used in the note to differentiate these.

Yes expressions: strings starting with any one of the characters "nN+jJyYoO"

No expressions: strings starting with any one of the characters "oO-nN".

The "N" in the affirmative answers is a Greek Nu, this will be clarified.

24 Annex A - The MES-2 character repertoire

Add the following important paragraph at the end

The names of characters included in the above collection are to be found in ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993 (E), the English version. This CWA uses the English names of the characters to be able to classify under section 4.1.2, for example, 'all the characters with the word "CAPITAL" in their names'.

Response: accepted.

(The question of whether the narrative specifications of this CWA can be used to create FRENCH-France Locales using the French names of characters for classifications etc. has NOT been raised any time during the workshop. Some explanatory text will be necessary to address this and possibly other language locales using language-unique names for characters etc.)
 

25 Annex B

Clause 4: Monetary formatting

The monetary formatting for the Italian language in the pan-European environment is the same as the European default, to ensure consistent behaviour within the pan-European institutions.

Clause 5: Date and time conventions

For the date and time conventions, the following numeric forms are recommended to be used in a pan-European document written in the Italian language.

Long date: 1996-04-28

Abbreviated day and time: 1996-04-28 17:22:06

Abbreviated long date: 1996-04-28

Numeric date: 1996-04-28

Time: 09:22:06

The time of the day is given in the range 00:00:00 to 23:59:59, and the possible leap second 23:59:60. No abbreviation is used for before or after noon.

(To be consistent with the previous clauses in Annex B) replace the above text with:

The numeric formats for the date and time conventions for the Italian language in the pan-European environment are the same as the European default, to ensure consistent behaviour within the pan-European institutions.

Response: accepted.

==== END OF COMMENTS on CWA Draft WD22 of European Default Locale =====
 

Marion Gunn
 

COMMENT ONE

It might, I believe, be neater to present the languages in alphabetical order, both under paragraph 0 (Introduction) and paragraph 4, thus: Icelandic, Irish, Italian, instead of randomly, as one sees in N008 Icelandic, Italian).

Response: The languages are in ISO 639 language code order, this will be clarified.

COMMENT TWO

I agree with Michael Everson's very useful comment that the introductory text in the Irish section should read thus: "Names of days and names of months are written with initial capital letters on significant elements. The article _na_ is not capitalized when it occurs within names, nor are initial mutations, such as the _h_ in _Dé hAoine_."

Response: accepted in principle, along with Michael Eversons proposal.

COMMENT THREE

I also agree with Michael Everson that the current text on Irish

Affirmative and Negative expressions is very misleading. However, I would amend that text in a slightly different way, thus:

"Affirmative expression
There is no limited set of letters associated with affirmative responses in Irish, as its affirmative expressions are formed by simply repeating an appropriate form of the verb used in asking the question. When questions are posed using the present tense of one of the two verbs "to be" (a practice recommended for software localization and other computer uses), the affirmative responses will be Tá, Sea, Sé, Sí, Is ea, Is é, Is í, Is iad, etc., depending on context. The letters T, S, I, Y (Yes ), and the digit 1 should be accepted."

"Negative expression

There is a limited set of letters associated with negative responses in Irish, as its negative expressions are formed by placing either of its two negative particles (ní or cha) before an appropriate form of the verb used in asking the question. When questions are posed using the present tense of one of the two verbs "to be" (a practice recommended for software localization and other computer uses), the negative responses will be Níl, Chan fhuil, Ní hea, Ní hé, Ní hí, Chan ea, Chan é, Chan í, Chan iad, etc., depending on context. The letters N, C, and the digit 0 should be accepted."

I would ask Michael to read over the above, if he would, to ensure that my rewording has not introduced any fresh errors.
 

Response: accepted in principle, along with Michael Eversons proposal.
 
 

Þorvarður Kári Ólafsson

I have the following comments on the draft CWA Eurolocale dated 1999-06-27:

1. On clause 4.2.9 Icelandic

The full and short names of weekdays must be written with Icelandic characters. Please correct as follows:

thridjudagur -> þriðjudagur
thri -> þri
midhvikudagur -> miðvikudagur
midh -> mið

Response: accepted.

2. On clause 4.2 in general

It is advisable to contact the appropriate language/national authorities to ensure the correctness of the language dependent locales, rather than assuming silence implies agreement.

Response: accepted in principle. The authorities have been posted for a long time, except for Icelandic and Norwegian information. The latter two authorities will thus be contacted (that is, Norway only, as Icelandic review is considered done with this comment from Þorvarður Kári Ólafsson STRÍ).