Dear Sir/Madam, I hope this email finds you well. I'm writing to you with a request to accept proposed changes of correcting the spelling of capital of Ukraine Kyiv in the Time Zone Database. I've found previously closed PR with the same intention. It was about renaming Kyiv and other two cities of Ukraine: Uzhhorod and Zaporizhia. It was closed 4y ago with no changes applied. I am deeply sorry for comments left by their authors in that PR. Those messages were sounding offensive and I understand your decision of closing that PR with no decision made. I agree, 4y ago the usage of Kiev was much wider than nowadays, and believe you will find materials I attached to my PR meaningful. The link to PR I've brought to your attention: https://github.com/eggert/tz/pull/27 I have also attached a patch of the commit to the email. Looking forward to hearing from you. Kind regards, Viktor Perov
On 8/13/20 10:01 AM, Victor Perov wrote:
Thanks for bringing that to the mailing list (if I could shut off GitHub pull requests I would).
Popularity is a volatile thing, and can't be used in systems which supposed to be consistent. That's an argument for avoiding change when in doubt, no? People have used tzdb's "Kiev" spelling for decades, and it will be a hassle for tzdb to change the spelling even if it's wrong. I'm not saying that the spelling should never change, merely that tzdb has historically been slow to change spellings and there are technical reasons for its inertia.
Many sources are using "Kyiv", as you mentioned; but many are also using "Kiev". A Google web search today from Los Angeles reports about 48 million results for "Kyiv" and about 108 million for "Kiev", and a Google News search reports about 4.1 million for "Kyiv" and about 9.4 million for "Kiev". This (admittedly quick-and-dirty) sanity check suggests that "Kyiv" is not yet the consensus spelling.
On August 15, 2020 6:19:08 PM EDT, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Many sources are using "Kyiv", as you mentioned; but many are also using "Kiev". A Google web search today from Los Angeles reports about 48 million results for "Kyiv" and about 108 million for "Kiev", and a Google News search reports about 4.1 million for "Kyiv" and about 9.4 million for "Kiev". This (admittedly quick-and-dirty) sanity check suggests that "Kyiv" is not yet the consensus spelling.
I did a more reliable Google Ngram search, which shows the usage in edited text, and found that while the Official Government spelling is clearly gaining ground, it hasn't quite crossed over yet. <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28Kiev+-+chicken+Kiev%29%2CKy...> That said, the gap is quite similar to that between Bombay and Mumbai or Calcutta and Kolkata. By contrast, Beijing surpassed Peking in edited English text by about 1980. -GAWollman
On 2020-08-15 16:56, Garrett Wollman wrote:
On August 15, 2020 6:19:08 PM EDT, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Many sources are using "Kyiv", as you mentioned; but many are also using "Kiev". A Google web search today from Los Angeles reports about 48 million results for "Kyiv" and about 108 million for "Kiev", and a Google News search reports about 4.1 million for "Kyiv" and about 9.4 million for "Kiev". This (admittedly quick-and-dirty) sanity check suggests that "Kyiv" is not yet the consensus spelling.
I did a more reliable Google Ngram search, which shows the usage in edited text, and found that while the Official Government spelling is clearly gaining ground, it hasn't quite crossed over yet.
<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28Kiev+-+chicken+Kiev%29%2CKy...>
That said, the gap is quite similar to that between Bombay and Mumbai or Calcutta and Kolkata. By contrast, Beijing surpassed Peking in edited English text by about 1980.
That latter is somewhat amusing in this context as we spell the tzdb zone identifier for most of mainland China Shanghai whereas we label it Beijing Time. There is also no confusion or lack of recognition of either spelling whereas a lot of recent name changes agreed by the UN have almost zero publicity, usage, or recognition among most English speakers, except diplomatic circles, and they are required to use whatever they are told to use, unlike this project. I think we need a principle expressed in theory.html explaining these file names are internal zone identifiers with historical spellings, and as we would not change a city or region as a zone identifier spelling just because another in the area may now have a somewhat larger population, nor would we change program variable names because someone felt a different name better reflected what it represents, we will not change zone identifiers because some software neglects to use CLDR or similar technology and displays a name that someone dislikes because of political or cultural reasons. I believe it was a mistake to change the spellings in the past, as that makes it harder to remember to correlate the former name with older laws and regulations about time, and that has encouraged others to push to change zone identifier spellings now for various political or cultural reasons, which is cause for rejection when considering other changes. I think that also needs to be clearly expressed as a separate point in theory.html. I think that we also need a FAQ translating theory.html into International Basic English or better International Business English to explain the project and principles to outsiders, and that would best be done by a non-native English writer, without either US or UK cultural or linguistic biases or preconceptions, or desire to be excrutiatingly Politically Correct. Which reminds me: I see that the primary branch of the development source has not yet been renamed to avoid offending some. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised. [Data in IEC units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]
Seems like this comes up every few months, even with changes (or proposed changes) in various files trying to educate everyone on the policies, standards and other approaches of the project. - bjs
On 2020-08-16 12:53, Bryan Smith wrote:
Seems like this comes up every few months, even with changes (or proposed changes) in various files trying to educate everyone on the policies, standards and other approaches of the project.
That is why I suggested we have a FAQ with answers comprehensible to non-native English speakers, preferably Google-translatable with little distortion to at least a few languages that can be checked by contributors, to provide feedback on both the English language content and auto-translations into languages they know. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised. [Data in IEC units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]
participants (5)
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Brian Inglis -
Bryan Smith -
Garrett Wollman -
Paul Eggert -
Victor Perov