PhpGedView

To have a meaningful translation to Russian for the "Pedigree" dropdown selector in the "Add child" window a different word should be used instead of $factarray["BIRT"] Thank you.

What's wrong with using $factarray["BIRT"] ? Please explain the difference between the new variable and $factarray["BIRT"] . It's possible that your new variable will be useful in some of the other languages we already support.

It would be a little difficult to explain since you probably don't know Russian language. In English $factarray["BIRT"] is a noun "Birth" which in most occurencies is used to determine the event of birth and therefore is translated by a Russian noun "Рождение" (in nominative). But in "Pedigree" dropdown selector it selects the content of the tag 2 PEDI which determines the way the child is related to the family, namely: by birth, by adoption, by sealing, etc. In English you still can put the same noun. But in Russian it sounds very ugly. You can use the same noun, but with a preposition "по рождению" (in dative) or even better, use an adjective "родной/родная" (masc./fem.). And the first capital letter in this case is absolutely inappropriate. So it requires a different language variable, especially because it appears not only in this selector, but also in different tables where the children are listed. Actually I'm just discouraging to use the tag "2 PEDI birth", considering this to be a default ("unknown" in that dropdown selector field). This is not a unique case, I encountered some other puzzles like this. If you are ready to accept this one, I will submit some other cases, but one by one...

Eugene, Do not underestimate the language skills of the PhpGedView users :-) The problem you describe exists probably in many places of the display. English rarely uses cases, unlike many other languages. I recently worked on the translation of dates into text, (e.g. from January to February = "od stycznia do lutego", between January and February = "między styczniem a lutym" itp ), which involves a number of cases in Polish. Generally, I feel that most important is the Display portion, because bad language is most jarring. In the Data Entry screens, I usually tell my users that some imperfections are quite OK. Perhaps it is possible to change the heading ('Pedigree' in this case) translation in such way as to demand a nominative as a value, for example "Pedigree Type" = "Рождение". Just a thought. Otherwise, I am afraid that the developers would need a more concrete set of rules. Good luck -_Marek

This is not only an entry porblem, mostly a display issue. This word is displayed in many tables with children, and here it looks very ugly and meaningless, like "сестра (Рождение)".

Eugene, You are right - I have not paid attention to the recent version of the "Close Relatives" display. Even in English it sounds artificial, Sister (Birth), Brother (Adoption). It would sound better if we used e.g. Sister (by birth), Brother (adopted) etc. If you were to forgo the gender versions, perhaps a single additional variable would do: Sister (by birth, rodzony/a, родной/ая) Brother (adopted, adoptowany, ...) etc. Do you have other issues like that, before we bother the developers with change request? Regards _Marek

Marek, You catched exactly what I mean. And it does'nt bother me to put "родной/ая", there are many instances where I do the same. As for other issues, I could bypass some of them, so these are not crytical. I would mention only one, the use of $factarray["NAME"] for the Name of a Repository. Even if the tag 1 NAME is used in Gedcom, in Russian I translate this as "Фамилия, имя, отчество (имена)", which is good only for a person, this sounds ugly for a Repository. $factarray["TITL"] = "Название" would be definitely better.