Contrary to English, the varieties of German should not be split along political borders.
The variations within Germany are by far more important than the variations between Germany and Austria.
Even if all speakers are pronouncing phrases in standard German (Hochdeutsch/Schriftdeutsch), the influence of regiolect remains the most important factor influencing accent varieties.
However, asking the speaker which town/village they think that their language use is typical of if any (to exclude atypical samples from persons who have recently migrated for example) should provide reliable data. This can then be mapped to the dialect groups and should provide a usable classification that can be used similarly to accent classification for the variants of English.
Providing nearest city is no doubt a much better approach than the current classification. Cities have always been cultural hot-spots and language evolution is linked to cultural evolution.
One should bear in mind that there are some complex situations like multilingual cities (i.e. Brussels, Belgium or Fribourg, Switzerland). It must be possible to assign a city to more than one language.
What about a more radical approach: asking speakers to choose a location on a map (via Openstreetmap API).
Everyone would be able to do so and using this data would become highly flexible and future-proof:
Thanks for the feedback, we are definitely considering a more location-oriented metadata strategy to understand how people is likely to sound. We are right now evaluating with our legal team the requirements and limitations.
With almost 100 supported languages, Firefox faces many localization challenges. Using traditional localization solutions, these are difficult to overcome. Software localization has been dominated by an outdated paradigm: translations that map one-to-one to the source language. The grammar of the source language, which at Mozilla is English, imposes limits on the expressiveness of the translation.
The message is only displayed when the tab count is 2 or more. In English, the word tab will always appear as plural tabs. An English-speaking developer may be content with this message. It sounds great for all possible values of $count.
Fluent turns the localization landscape on its head. Rather than require developers to predict all possible permutations of complexity in all supported languages, Fluent keeps the source language as simple as it can be.
Fluent empowers translators to create grammatically correct translations and leverage the expressive power of their language. With Fluent, the Czech translation can now benefit from correct plural forms for all possible values of the $count variable.
At first glance, Fluent looks similar to other localization solutions that allow translations to use plurals and grammatical genders. What sets Fluent apart is the holistic approach to localization. Fluent takes these ideas further by defining the syntax for the entire text file in which multiple translations can be stored, and by allowing messages to reference other messages.
Referencing messages is a powerful tool for ensuring consistency. Once defined, a translation can be reused in other translations. Fluent even has a special kind of message, called a term, which is best suited for reuse. Term identifiers always start with a dash.
Once defined, the -sync-brand-name term can be referenced from other messages, and it will always resolve to the same value. Terms help enforce style guidelines; they can also be swapped in and out to modify the branding in unofficial builds and on beta release channels.
Using terms verbatim in the middle of a sentence may cause trouble for inflected languages or for languages with different capitalization rules than English. Terms can define multiple facets of their value, suitable for use in different contexts. Consider the following definition of the -sync-brand-name term in Italian.
Thanks to the asymmetric nature of Fluent, the Italian translator is free to define two facets of the brand name. The default one (uppercase) is suitable for standalone appearances as well as for use at the beginning of sentences. The lowercase version can be explicitly requested by passing the capitalization parameter, when the brand name is used inside a larger sentence.
Defining multiple term variants is a versatile technique which allows the localization to cater to the grammatical needs of many languages. In the following example, the Polish translation can use declensions to construct a grammatically correct sentence in the sync-signedout-account-title message.
Firefox has been the main driver behind the development of Fluent so far. Today, there are over 3000 Fluent messages in Firefox. The migration from legacy localization formats started early last year and is now in full swing. Fluent has proven to be a stable and flexible solution for building complex interfaces, such as the UI of Firefox Preferences. It is also used in a number of Mozilla websites, such as Firefox Send and Common Voice.
We think Fluent is a great choice for applications that value simplicity and a lean runtime, and at the same time require that elements of the interface depend on multiple variables. In particular, Fluent can help create natural-sounding translations in size-constrained UIs of mobile apps; in information-rich layouts of social media platforms; and in games, to communicate gameplay statistics and mechanics to the player.
This method requires some work from the developer: they need to write the custom function to expose it to localizations. The good news is that it only needs to happen once and in a single place in code: where the Fluent runtime is initialized. Because they are code, custom functions can be reviewed and tested just as any other code in the code base, to help ensure that they do what they claim to :)
Importantly, the use of the custom function is completely opt-in. They can be added progressively, as they are required. All localization callsites remain unchanged, and all existing translations remain functional.
It is further the intent of city council to recognize that music venues add to the vibrancy and economic vitality of the city and to create entertainment districts in the city which would promote and encourage this type of activity while continuing to protect the area residents from excessive noise emanating from those venues.
The above list of factors is nonexhaustive. The totality of the circumstances should be considered and other factors not listed may also be considered in determining whether or not sound unreasonably disturbs the peace and repose of others as provided in BMC 10.24.120(C)(2).
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