"Easy English" for Canada

Viajero_Perdido · 2019-03-27T16:18:45.000Z

The latest version of JOSM has a Canadian English setting. When you choose this, or simply if you run JOSM with language=default and you happen to be in Canada, it self-announces as:

JOSM - Java OpenStreetMap Editor in Easy English

…and

This Canadian variant uses very simple English.

Why?

alester · 2019-03-27T16:33:12.000Z

It looks like I set up my OS with en-us when I installed it, so I just tried flipping JOSM over to en-ca to see the difference. I can’t see any other than the “…in Easy English” title. Even “wrongly-spelled” ( ) words like ‘color’ remain with that spelling. Can you give some examples of where you see it using “very simple English”?

Viajero_Perdido · 2019-03-27T17:01:57.000Z

I haven’t noticed anything different offhand, except what I pointed out above.

“Simple English” would be a perfectly valid separate choice, ideal for people learning the language. (Years ago we travelled the world, listening to VOA in Special English on shortwave, hearing phrases like “thousand million” instead of “billion” because the latter wasn’t in the shortened dictionary. Or “very large wave” instead of “tsunami”. And so on.)

But still… Why?

Hb · 2019-03-29T04:38:18.000Z

Viajero Perdido:

Why?

The Canadian translation is only a dialect. It wants to deliver a terminology as distinguishable as possible. Please see https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/17380

Further suggestions for a better announcement on the Welcome screen and for all other aspects of improving the translation of JOSM are very welcome.

alester · 2019-03-29T15:59:41.000Z

Hb-:

Viajero Perdido:

Why?

Further suggestions for a better announcement on the Welcome screen and for all other aspects of improving the translation of JOSM are very welcome.

A good start would be an accurate announcement on the Welcome page. Referring to Canadian English as “Easy English” is bordering on the offensive.

Tordanik · 2019-03-29T16:57:59.000Z

Hb-, most of the ideas you’re describing in the JOSM ticket seem to have little with the differences between Canadian English and other variants of English. That’s at the very least unexpected, because an en-CA localization usually just means that words such as ‘analyze’ and ‘colour’ get minor spelling changes.

alester · 2019-03-29T17:35:23.000Z

Tordanik:

Hb-, most of the ideas you’re describing in the JOSM ticket seem to have little with the differences between Canadian English and other variants of English. That’s at the very least unexpected, because an en-CA localization usually just means that words such as ‘analyze’ and ‘colour’ get minor spelling changes.

Yes, this too. The ticket describes a number of generalizations that aren’t related at all to specifically Canadian English, with most being nothing more than a different choice of word that any English speaker might make depending on the situation.

There are also a number of insults scattered throughout the ticket, including:

Perhaps the lazy Canadians are going to use this translation for Do not hide toolbar and menu too.

and

But when the people south of their border want them to call something a mode what clearly is not a mode the Canadians get angry and use their dialect to say
Expert view instead of Expert mode.

It seems like someone (hb— ?) has a very inaccurate view of the Canadian languages and might even have an outright issue with us as a people. Were any actual Canadians involved with making this “translation”?

Dartmouthmapmaker · 2019-04-06T21:16:11.000Z

Canadian English has words spelled differently than US English like right (Canadian ) and rite (US) Canadian also use different words to name stuff and even use the same words from the British English and adopted words from the native and French languages , Living in Canada I find the language could even different between parts of Canada or within a province (like Nova Scotia ) . Its a fact that the even the French spoken in Quebec is different from the french in France or Acadia french On the windows operating system the default units of measure the computer depend the choice English the keyboard is set

alester · 2019-04-08T17:00:43.000Z

Dartmouthmapmaker:

Canadian English has words spelled differently than US English like right (Canadian ) and rite (US) Canadian also use different words to name stuff and even use the same words from the British English and adopted words from the native and French languages , Living in Canada I find the language could even different between parts of Canada or within a province (like Nova Scotia ) . Its a fact that the even the French spoken in Quebec is different from the french in France or Acadia french On the windows operating system the default units of measure the computer depend the choice English the keyboard is set

I have no objection with having an en-ca translation in JOSM. However, it needs to be a true Canadian English translation with the appropriate changes (colour vs color, etc.), not what’s currently there. The current en-ca seems to be treated as a dumbed-down English version.

GerdP · 2019-04-08T17:08:16.000Z

Seems that hb-- got something wrong, but this doesn’t mean that the translations can’t be improved. You only need to login and improve them:
https://translations.launchpad.net/josm/trunk/

Hb · 2019-04-12T09:49:48.000Z

alester:

A good start would be an accurate announcement on the Welcome page.

A note is not welcome on the Startup page, please see https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/StartupPageSource?action=diff&version=2512&old_version=2511

GerdP:

You only need to login and improve them: https://translations.launchpad.net/josm/trunk/

The online translation server is mostly overloaded. Several bug reports about this issue exist.

It is recommended to use an offline translation tool like https://omegat.org/. Its fast regex search over translation and source gives the change to maintain a consistent translation. All online tools (Transifex too!) are lacking on this task.

The reasons behind and the way up to en_CA are shown on https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/17380#comment:14