Remove/Merge filipino (fil) translation as its a duplicate of tagalog (tl)

[Yousuf 'Jay' Philips]

Filipino (fil) is listed as one of the languages to translate the ubuntu installer, but you can't select it in the installer, while the Tagalog (tl) language is listed and unfortunately more people have added translations to Filipino rather than Tagalog. To eliminate this duplication, the work done in Filipino should be copied into Tagalog and Filipino should be removed.

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hirsute/+source/ubiquity/+pots/ubiquity-debconf/fil/+translate

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hirsute/+source/ubiquity/+pots/ubiquity-debconf/tl/+translate

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Thanks for calling our attention to this duplication!

We need to take the total into account, and not just the installer, to consider a merge. Looking at the overview of Ubuntu translations in Launchpad I see:

Filipino: approx. 1,400 translated strings (0.4%)

Tagalog: approx. 5,600 translated strings (1.7%)

This is the overview:
https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/

We don't ship language packs for either of those languages; for that we apply a 5% threshold. So currently it doesn't really make much sense that any of those languages is selectable in the installer. (But that won't change for 21.04.)

At GNOME (<https://l10n.gnome.org/languages/>) I see Tagalog but not Filipino.

So yes, it looks like it would make sense to drop Filipino and keep Tagalog. But in that case it should reasonably be accomplished all over Launchpad, so Filipino is dropped as an available Launchpad language:

https://translations.launchpad.net/+languages/fil

There are also two related translators teams:

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-fil

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-tl

I can think that for such a merge to be meaningful, there should be a group of Tagalog FOSS translators with the goal to soon improve the translation coverage to at least 5% to justify the creation of language packs.

@Yousuf: Are you involved in such a planned translation effort?

@Colin: Do you have any thoughts on how to go about this kind of merge?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Not the slightest, I'm afraid!

Before considering any technical changes, I think I would want to start by ensuring that this is the clear consensus of both existing translation teams (consulting translation teams in other projects if necessary). My understanding is that Filipino is the standardized variety of Tagalog, but the fact that e.g. ISO 639 treats them separately, and things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_language#Filipino_versus_Tagalog which suggests that they are very close but not identical, lead me to suspect that there may be differences of opinion on this matter of the sort that we generally try to avoid getting dragged into as we're not well-equipped to adjudicate them. It would not be the first case where we have multiple very similar languages registered and translated separately.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Thanks for your input, Colin. I agree that such a merge would need some kind of consensus among affected parties.

If there is a group of motivated translators, who want to improve the Tagalog translation coverage to become a viable language option and justify the creation of language packs, I can think that such an investigation would be motivated. Otherwise not. And that group of translators would need to be the driver in such a project.

Let's see how the OP responds.

[Yousuf 'Jay' Philips (philipz85)]

@Gunnar: No i'm not involved in the translation effort, i'm doing community outreach to help complete the translation of the installer and noticed this issue and didn't want duplication of effort in 2 languages when only one of them is being listed in the installer. As previously stated, my suggestion is limited to just the installer and maybe I filed this under the incorrect project.

I've asked zakame from the #ubuntu-ph IRC channel, the owner of the 'Ubuntu Team Philippines' group, which manages the fil translation of the installer to give his take on this issue.

I've also emailed Eric Pareja, the owner of 'Ubuntu Tagalog Translators', which manages the tl translation of the installer to give his opinion as well.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

I see, Yousuf. Thanks! Then let's await their position on the topic.

[Eric Pareja (xenos)]

Hello and thank you for notifying me about this issue.

Just to clarify for all those involved, the Filipino and Tagalog split is
intentional because they are different languages. It's a long explanation,
but the Wikipedia articles about them aren't too far from the truth, and
there is a lot of debate about this. We decided upstream (Debian) on
working on the Tagalog translation first to avoid the confusion about
Filipino. The Filipino translation in Ubuntu came later, along with
translation projects for the other major Philippine languages. My
suggestion re this bug is to close it and allow the two translations to
proceed naturally. Since it is all voluntary, the volunteers decide which
language translation they want to contribute to. There is, of course,
"cross-pollination" in the translations.

On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 4:55 PM Gunnar Hjalmarsson <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> I see, Yousuf. Thanks! Then let's await their position on the topic.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1922929
>
> Title:
> Remove/Merge filipino (fil) translation as its a duplicate of tagalog
> (tl)
>
> Status in Ubuntu Translations:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> Filipino (fil) is listed as one of the languages to translate the
> ubuntu installer, but you can't select it in the installer, while the
> Tagalog (tl) language is listed and unfortunately more people have
> added translations to Filipino rather than Tagalog. To eliminate this
> duplication, the work done in Filipino should be copied into Tagalog
> and Filipino should be removed.
>
> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hirsute/+source/ubiquity/+pots
> /ubiquity-debconf/fil/+translate
>
> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hirsute/+source/ubiquity/+pots
> /ubiquity-debconf/tl/+translate
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+bug/1922929/+subscriptions
>

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