Zimbabwe native language.

[yackermann]

As it got to me #85 , we have an issue to resolve. According to our data native language for Zimbabwe currently is 'sn: Shona'. Officially there 16 official languages:

• Chewa
• Chibarwe
• English
• Kalanga
• "Koisan"
• (presumably Tsoa)
• Nambya
• Ndau
• Ndebele
• Shangani
• Shona
• "sign language"
• Sotho
• Tonga
• Tswana
• Venda
• Xhosa

I propose to set English as native for now as a general medium and most neutral language in this list. And because it used in Zimbabwe public media:

• http://www.zim.gov.zw/
• http://www.zispa.org.zw/
• http://www.newzimbabwe.com/
• http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
• https://www.newsday.co.zw/
• etc

Another issue is not all of this languages are defined in Zimbabwe object.

[twmbx]

Hi, so for me to adequately contribute, I guess I should ask for clarification as to what is the desired goal for "native" language & things like "native names" from the perspective of this repo?
Is it to be accurate from a linguistics point of view or to help define suitable defaults and such for projects?

So for instance, in most of sub-saharan Africa, if one were developing a web project and trying to cater for as many people as possible through translation or i18n one could arguably get by with supporting english, french and portuguese as display languages because those are the most commonly used languages professionally, for "official documents" and within the media. None of those are "native" as defined in a dictionary though.

Then there are interesting cases like South Africa where all 11 official languages are frequently used professionally, in "official documents" and in media. I'm scared of going too deep into it because there is danger that it can even become a political discussion but depending on who you asked; South Africans may not consider Afrikaans "native" due to it being Dutch at it's core.

Regarding my position on Northern or Southern Ndebele btw, to Ndebele speakers, regardless of where they are from, the language in it's vernacular is "isiNdebele". In Zimbabwean schools Ndebele is an optional subject and is not differentiated. To a Zimbabwean it's just Ndebele, including how it is referenced in the constitution. So back again to the aim of the data in the repo.

[yackermann]

@twoSeats Actually, talking about definition of what is native, I seriously got no idea, and so I summon @mledoze to explain.
Talking about "isiNdebele". The languages are called so because they spoken Ndebele peoples, and so each of them will call it Ndebele. But the languages are different and so they have their official ISO name and ISO code.

[mledoze]

@twoSeats:

This project aims to provide useful and accurate data for world countries. As you can see most of it comes from Wikipedia, which seems like a good source. Unfortunalety I don't have enough knowledge of each country's culture or language specificities, that's why I chose to stick with official languages.

The natives languages is the list of official languages for a country. For example Peru has 3 official languages [1]; the nativeLanguage property, which was introduced in v1.6, identifies which language is used for the native names.

Regarding the problems raised in #85, I'll come back to you tomorrow.

Thank you for your contribution.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru

[mledoze]

When the new format for country names was introduced in v1.6, we had to choose one of the country languages for native names, thus the nativeLanguage property which identifies which one is used.
Instead of having to do that, we could list country names in every native languages.

For example with Peru, we would have something like:

"name": {
    "common": "Peru",
    "official": "Republic of Peru",
    "native": {
        "aym": {
            "common": "Piruw",
            "official": "Piruw Suyu"
        },
        "que": {
            "common": "Piruw",
            "official": "Piruw Ripuwlika"
        },
        "spa": {
            "common": "Per\u00fa",
            "official": "Rep\u00fablica del Per\u00fa"
        }
    }
},
"...": "...",
"languages": {
    "aym": "Aymara",
    "que": "Quechua",
    "spa": "Spanish"
}

What do you think?

[yackermann]

@mledoze I like the Idea.

[yackermann]

@mledoze I will finish it by monday.

[mledoze]

@herrniemand excellent 👍!

[yackermann]

@mledoze How about translation?

[mledoze]

@herrniemand do you mean this #6 (comment)?

[yackermann]

@mledoze current translations are inconsistent with name object.

Way they are now:

"translations":{
    "de" :"Russland",
}

The way they should be:

"translations":{
    "de": {
        "common":"Russland",
        "official":"Russische Föderation"
    }...
}

[yackermann]

@mledoze Yes*)

[yackermann]

@mledoze I looked at countries commit punch card...

Friday 5pm commits...

XD

[mledoze]

yay 😆

[yackermann]

@mledoze I think we finally solved that issue, so its can be closed.

[mledoze]

@herrniemand yes indeed! I'll take care of #93 and #41.