Korean is not 朝鮮語

[Jihui Choi]

Binary package hint: iso-codes

In language select page(locale) of Japanese UI, there's an odd string.

http://ubuntu.or.kr/download/file.php?id=2546

1. Korea has been seperated, republic of korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
After about 60 years, their language are changed a little bit different.
And now we have two character set or locale, ko_KR(south korea) and ko_KP(north korea).

2. I can't find any ko_KP language file. As my known, most of all of open source language packge about korean use ko_KR, not ko_KP.
So even for ko_KP, we express them differently. ko_KR is "한국어", ko_KP is "조선어" or "북한어".

3. Language name is expressed by their language. For exmaple, we express "한국어", not "Korean. and for Japanese, express "日本語", not "Japanese". So it will be change to "한국어", not "조선어" nor "朝鮮語" (as above)

[Changwoo Ryu (cwryu)]

About item "3",

It's not true. I am the Korean iso-codes translator but I have NOT translated "Japanese" to "日本語". (Should "Thai" be translated in Thai script? )

Iso-codes Japanese translation is for Japanese users. So it should not be written in Hangul. If you don't agree on this language selection UI, why don't you just file a bug on the program, not on the translation?

And about 朝鮮語 vs 韓国語. IMHO the decision should be based on as what Japanese users call the Korean language in general, not based on which is politically correct.

[Jihui Choi (jihui-choi)]

Changwoo Ryu // About item "3", I think I have to check. Thank you for your pointing.

And about 朝鮮語 vs 韓国語, I think it's not a matter about what Japanese call the Korean language. Because most of people recognizes korean as one language. But for locale, it have to be recognized differently, such as ko_KR and ko_KP.

So my assertion is, "Express ko_KR as "韓国語", and for ko_KP as "朝鮮語" or something else. Especially for Locale setting, it have to distinguished.

If not, it will cause a matter someday.
Someday north korean guys shows up. And he says "Add our language or locale for some package.".
But if there is only "朝鮮語" which no one knows it's for ko_KR nor ko_KP, he'll complain just like me. "ko_KR and ko_KP is not the same." That is the point.

[Changwoo Ryu (cwryu)]

This iso-codes language translation is a set of translated names for each ISO 639 registered langauge, not for locales. There is only one registered language code in ISO 639, "ko". And the msgid is "Korean", not "ko_KR". So it is not possible to distinguish between ko_KR and ko_KP in iso-codes translation.

If you think it should not be like this, just file a bug on the language selection program for NOT using the iso-codes translation.

[Changwoo Ryu (cwryu)]

Anyway this is Japanese translation for Japanese users. IMO if 朝鮮語 is more familiar to the current Japanese users, 朝鮮語 is the better Japanese translation. It is not possible nor desirable to change the way what they have used their language.

Westerners call it as "Korean", "Corean", "Coreen", .. and it is not politically correct either. ("Korea" is the name of the old dynasty which was fallen 600 years ago.) Well, we can't change them. It is what they have used for hundreds years.

In some cases, there are really politically disputing translations, like Burma/Miyanma, Falkland/Malvinas, .. , but I don't feel any uncomfortable feeling from the word "朝鮮語".

[Jihui Choi (jihui-choi)]

Changwoo Ryu // "This iso-codes language translation is a set of translated names for each ISO 639 registered langauge, not for locales. There is only one registered language code in ISO 639, "ko""

I undertand. So item 2 is thrown now.

However About item 3, I don't think so. I'm very uncomfortable against "朝鮮語". But I think I might discuss in some other place, not here.

[Changwoo Ryu (cwryu)]

But again, this is Japanese translation. What matters? Do you plan to report the same thing against the Chinese translation? I have no idea which is more familiar in Japan but I'm sure 朝鮮語 is dominant over 韓囯語 in China.

In Korean/Chinese, United Kingdoms is 영국(英國)/英国, which was from the pronunciation of "England". This is very serious offense against Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales people. (Surely someone in the past China or Korea got confused by England and UK relationship.) So should we drop the whole use of the language 영국/英国 which has been used for hundreds years?

[Jihui Choi (jihui-choi)]

Hel~lo? According your saying, it's not your business, is it?
You're not a Japanese. So why do you have an interest about this problem?

And I'd like to advice for you, Changwoo Ryu
1. Try to learn how to communicate with other people
2. Try to learn how to solve a problem without unnecessary trouble.

About 영국(英國)/英国 case, it's different. They make an one country, UK. However we're seperated, Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Of course I want to unite together ASAP. But now we have different.

And it's not about country name, about langauge name. UK use in English. and English has a name, as "English". But Korean doesn't have a name. Someone calls as "한국어", other people calls "조선어", "북조선어", "문화어"... So I said, "Even if we can't make a unified name for Korean, it's ok. But I want to call as "한국어" for southern language, and for northern, call as what you want.

However, as you said, it's not about locale. So we can't call differently. we have to choose "한국어" or "조선어".
So now are we done?

[Changwoo Ryu (cwryu)]

Please. I'm not discussing with you about whether this translation term is politically correct or not. And I'm not discussing about the unified Korean term. The Korean translation is already "한국어" (ko_KR) by me and other Korean translators.

You filed this bug about the Japanese translation. It's about the Japanese term 朝鮮語 which is widely used for "Korean" in general, not for North or South one. Though most educated Korean people can read its Kanji characters (and some people think about North Korea's official name 朝鮮), it is just a Japanese word. We can't change all the language conventions in the world as we want.

영국(英國)/英国 is an example of conventionally used words which are politically incorrect. Saying Britain as "England" is offensive to non-England UK people. But we are using this term 영국(英國)/英国, because we have been used it for a long time.

[Hiroshi Miura (miurahr)]

>It's about the Japanese term 朝鮮語 which is widely used for "Korean" in general, not for North or South one.

It may be a big issue because wikipedia page is locked and wait discussion about name http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%9D%E9%AE%AE%E8%AA%9E
It said that academia use 朝鮮語 by historical or conventional reason.

There also exist a log of discussion by Japanese translation team. They suggested use of 韓国語 , which is reflected more and more interchange with Japanese and South Korean in recent years.
http://logs.ubuntu-eu.org/free/2008/04/08/%23ubuntu-jp.html

[Hiroshi Miura (miurahr)]

An interim resolution is, kr to call 韓国・朝鮮語, ko_kr to call 韓国語 and kp_kr to call 朝鮮語 for political neutrality.
I'm not sure whether we should split kr to ko_kr and kp_kr.

BTW, I wanna use ko_kr and kp_kr as a language code argument of my library project, Unihandecode , because each country have their own standard to transliterate Korean to Latin. I'm interested in transliteration of Korean, also all Language in Unicode code space, to ASCII in Unihandecode project.

[Changwoo Ryu (cwryu)]

I think iso-codes should have ISO registered items only. Adding codes for our own use will lead to maintenance difficulties. If extra languages are needed, it could be handled by the language selection program.