Which languages are not used as systems default even by their native speakers?

[c.b...@posteo.jp]

Hello,

in addition to this initial question by me

https://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n/2023/09/msg00016.html

I would like to ask you for languages that are not used as systems
default by their nativ-speakers.
This question is related to package "backintime" [1][2] and will result
in a new feature.

One example might be Faroese. Some of them do use English or Danish as
systems default. There are several reasons why this happens. But this is
IMHO not relevant for this thread here.

Another that comes into my mind is Traditional Chinese. I assume most of
its users do use Simplified Chinese.

The idea is to "identify" such users (e.g. who setup "Danish") and
remind them at the first(!) start of an application that this
application do offer its GUI in a language (e.g. Faroese) that might fit
better to their needs or native language.

To implement something like this I need such a list of languages:
Danish -> Faroese
Simpl. Chinese -> Trad. Chinese
Norwegian Bokmål -> Norwegian Nynorsk
Norwegian Nynorsk -> Norwegian Bokmål
etc

This won't catch everyone or every language. For example lot of users
speaking such "minor" languages just use English as default language. I
can't catch them. Or I have to give them a list of 44 languages [3] they
might check just because they do use English.
For example Esperanto is another example. Esperanto speaking users are
using different system default languages.

But there might be other "clear" examples like Faroese?
Do you have more examples?

[1] -- <https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/backintime>
[2] -- <https://github.com/bit-team/backintime>
[3] -- <https://translate.codeberg.org/projects/backintime/common/>

[Helge Kreutzmann]

Hello c[1],

Am Mon, Sep 25, 2023 at 10:51:49AM +0000 schrieb c.b...@posteo.jp:
> To implement something like this I need such a list of languages:
> Danish -> Faroese
> Simpl. Chinese -> Trad. Chinese
> Norwegian Bokmål -> Norwegian Nynorsk
> Norwegian Nynorsk -> Norwegian Bokmål
> etc

From the top of my head:

German → Sorbian
German → Friesian
Netherlands → Friesian
(Swiss) German → Romansh
(Swiss) French → Romansh

And of course language variants, e.g. most German speaking users will
use "DE", but if "DE_AT" (and all the others) are available, these
would apply. And similarly of course for English, which has quite a
few variants.

Probably collecting all of these and finding a good decision tree is
quite a bit of a task and probably should be collected in a common
„library“ so other programmes might reuse this.

Greetings

Helge

[1] I was reluctant to anwer because questions without names are
usually routed to /dev/null, so you might consider giving userself
some name handle, possibly completely made up (beyond "c").

--
Dr. Helge Kreutzmann deb...@helgefjell.de
Dipl.-Phys. http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php
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Help keep free software "libre": http://www.ffii.de/

[c.b...@posteo.jp]

Dear Helge,

thanks for your reply.

The missing name was an accident. I'm Christian Buhtz from Halle
Germany.

Am 25.09.2023 18:06 schrieb Helge Kreutzmann:
> Probably collecting all of these and finding a good decision tree is
> quite a bit of a task and probably should be collected in a common
> „library“ so other programmes might reuse this.

Damn good idea.

Kind
Christian