I enclose below (with permission) copies of Usenet articles written by Alain LaBont<e'>, which cover the Canadian standard for multilingual time zone names. (I've told him about the tz tables.) At first I thought I'd propose to duplicate all the Canadian Zone and Rule lines, one copy for English and one copy for French. But now I'm not so sure, since this practice would greatly balloon the tables if we did it for all multilingual locations. The topic of multilingual time zone names seems to have slipped through the standardization cracks, since the LC_TIME environment variable doesn't address this issue. One way out of the problem would be to extend the syntax of the TZ environment variable to allow optional specification of the names of the standard and daylight zone names before the name of the file. E.g. `TZ=America/Halifax,HNA,HAA' for people in <I^>les-de-la-Madeleine who want French time zone names. This is a bit of a hack, since it doesn't address the issue of double-daylight zone names, or changes in zone names over time, but it may be the most practical solution. Another way would be to extend LC_TIME somehow to cover time zone names. This sounds less plausible to me, since there are dozens of time zones and most locales don't care about names of time zones on the other side of the planet. From: ALB@immedia.ca Newsgroups: comp.software.international Date: 14 Nov 1994 14:39:23 -0500 Message-ID: <3a8edb$781@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Now as promised, I post here the time zone abbreviations standardized in Canada for both English and French in CAN/CSA-Z234.4-89 standard (I have added notes and corrected minor typos still in the standard/ the abbreviations and numeric and alphabetic time zones are correct in the standard, what I corrected would not change any technical content). Table A2 - Canadian Time Zones Abbreviations (Abr<e'>viations des fuseaux horaires pour le Canada) Standard Time Daylight Saving Time ITU Designator Hours West French English French English of UTC HN- -ST HA- -DT 2-1/2 - - HAT NDT - 3 - - HAA ADT P 3-1/2 HNT NST - - - 4 HNA AST HAE EDT Q 5 HNE EST HAC CDT R 6 HNC CST HAR MDT S 7 HNR MST HAP PDT T 8 HNP PST HAY YDT U 9 HNY YST - - V HN stands for "Heure normale"/HA stands for "Heure avanc<e'>e" ST stands for "Standard Time"/DT stands for "Dailight saving Time" Prefix/Suffix meaning (note from ALB: I added the appropriate prepositions and articles "du, de l', des, de" for non-French speakers, so that the information of the standard be completed for them - this data is not in any version of the std.): A: Atlantic/de l'Atlantique C: Central/du Centre E: Eastern/de l'Est M: Mountain (note from ALB: see R for French) N: Newfoundland (note from ALB: see T for French) P: Pacific/du Pacifique R: des Rocheuses (note from ALB: see M for English) T: de Terre-Neuve (note from ALB: see N for English) Y: Yukon/du Yukon Note: The standard says (I cite the English version textually): "Although there is no ISO standard on time zone designators, the letters given in table A1 have been adopted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU/[UIT in French]), a UN ["Nations Unies" in the French version, normally abbreviated ONU] special agency having the status of treaty organization regarding radio operations and regulations. Within North America the abbreviations given in table A2 are also used." The standard also deals with all-numeric dates and times (Repr<e'>sentation num<e'>rique de la date et de l'heure). I invite those who want non-time-zone-related information on this subject to buy the standard from CSA (Canadian Standards Association/Association canadienne de normalisation) sales offices throughout the world. I only cited here the full table A2. Table A1 starts with Z for UTC, goes from A to M East of UTC (with M as a half-zone) and N to Y West of UTC (with Y as a half-zone); the Newfoundland half-zone does not seem covered by ITU/UIT, despite it is on the soil where the first transatlantic (first long range) radio transmissions were done by Marconi. Quarter zones are not covered either by ITU, even if this does not affect Canada, but certain countries. I also think that what would be good to document would be the dates on which standard and daylight-saving time changes are done throughout the world. I have not found that data in any place. I think it can *not* be done only on ITU designators, as it has to take into account at least Northern/Sourthern hemisphere and even national/multinational conventions and laws (for example, this fall, Britain, Europe and North America have all switched to Standard Time at different dates [3 dates...], sometimes at weeks of interval !!!) For other countries it is quite problematic... from time to time, laws change too. Perhaps there is a need for a worldwide registration authority for that matter. Alain LaBont<e'> Gouvernement du Qu<e'>bec Secr<e'>tariat du Conseil du tr<e'>sor Service de la prospective et de la francisation ----------- end of message 1 ----------- start of message 2 Destinat. (CA-JTC1-SC2@MICROSTAR.COM, CPWG-MAIL@REVCAN.CA, SC22WG20@DKUUG.DK) Objet : Mnemonics for the ITU assigned time zone codes... Envoyeur: RNET (ALB@immedia.ca) Date : 11/15/94 Time : 21:17 ---------- It is interesting to note that there is a mnemonic way to remember the time zone codes attributed by ITU for North America. Q applies to at least one of the two time zones of Quebec at any time of the year (Eastern Daylight Time in the summer, Atlantic Standard Time in the winter). Remember "Quebec in the summer", the most beautiful time of the year... For R, remember "Rivi<e`>re-du-loup West of the Atlantic": (see below) 4 HNA AST HAE EDT Q 5 HNE EST HAC CDT R FYI: Atlantic time zone used to begin West in Rivi<e`>re-du-loup when I was a teenager (to respect exact time zone calculations that divides the world into 24 equal parts). For convenience, all continental Quebec is on Eastern Time all the time now while the Atlantic Time Zone, because it is quite far East, applies to <I^>les-de-la-Madeleine, which is predominently-French-speaking Quebec even if you have to cross 2 other provinces (NB and PEI) to access it (it was populated by deported Acadians, and more recently by St.Pierrans and Miqueloners [from "neighbouring" St-Pierre-et-Miquelon, France]). On the continent, in Canada, you cross the Eastern zone to the Atlantic zone when you cross the bridge between Quebec and New Brunswick (between Matap<e'>dia and Campbelton). Interesting to note also that in the aviation jargon worldwide, the letter Q is pronounced Quebec (ALPHA... BRAVO... ... QUEBEC ... TANGO ... ZULU). When taking my first flight lessons at the Quebec airport in the eighties, I was puzzled about why they were identifying the control tower by "QUEBEC BRAVO" ("Why were they adding BRAVO?", I did not know... at the second lesson I heard it was the standard way of identifying the airport, whose code is YQB! [Y is for Canada and is obvious, it seems]) Z (i.e. ZULU) is assigned to UTC time zone (i.e. the time zone whose centre is at the Greenwich Observatory Meridian). Alain LaBont<e'> Gouvernement du Qu<e'>bec Secr<e'>tariat du Conseil du tr<e'>sor Service de la prospective et de la francisation