[PATCH HEAD] i18n fixes

[Werner Koch]

On Fri,  7 Oct 2016 08:44, ineiev at gnu.org said:

> I wonder if pgettext is really non-portable.

The gettext checks try to make use of other gettext implemntations.
pgettext is not available on non GNU systems and anyway pretty new.

> Indeed, the number of fragments can be dramatically reduced in this
> message, with more context provided. the drawback is that the total
> volume of msgids increases because the new strings share more parts.

Let me quote from the gettext manual:

     Translatable strings should be entire sentences.  It is often not
  possible to translate single verbs or adjectives in a substitutable way.

  [...]  
  
     Entire sentences are also important because in many languages, the
  declination of some word in a sentence depends on the gender or the
  number (singular/plural) of another part of the sentence.  There are
  usually more interdependencies between words than in English.  The
  consequence is that asking a translator to translate two half-sentences
  and then combining these two half-sentences through dumb string
  concatenation will not work, for many languages, even though it would
  work for English.  That’s why translators need to handle entire
  sentences.



Salam-Shalom,

   Werner
  
-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.
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