How are thousands and dates represented in your language in scripture?

Question

We are trying to improve the flexibility of how we check numbers and dates in Paratext. This is difficult because there are exceptions to rules which affect thousands separators and digit grouping, even within English according to style or target audience.

For example, in English it is often a matter of style whether you write:
1000 or 1,000
9999 or 9,999

But it is usually not OK to write:
10000
10,000 is better.

However, you may adopt the style which permits:
1,000 cats
but also choose the date style:
1000 B.C. (no thousands separator)

We would like to determine whether adding certain options to the Number Settings dialog will help people achieve the style they want, if it is unnecessary, or whether it wouldn't achieve the required flexibility.

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Please have a look at the images and the poll questions below and then at the replies to this message. If you see that someone has already replied for your language, please refrain from adding your vote. If no one has done so, please add your language and vote!

number settings5_2.png501x667 47.7 KB

Q1. Is it clear to you what ticking item "A" in the dialog above would do?

• Yes
• No

0voters

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Q2. In your chosen language, is item "A" in the dialog required:

• Always
• Never
• Sometimes

0voters

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SECTION 2

number settings5_4.png501x610 31.5 KB

Q3. In your chosen language, is item "B" required:

• Always
• Never
• Sometimes
• We would need something different to this

0voters

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Q4. In your chosen language, is the placement of the first 1000s separator (after 4 digits) different in dates compared to other numbers?

• Always
• Never
• Sometimes

0voters

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Q5. Does it look like the options in the second image allow you to write dates in the format you would require in your chosen language?

• Yes
• No
• I'm not sure, the dialog is not clear

0voters

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Answer 1

IanH:

If you see that someone has already replied for your language, please refrain from adding your vote.

The survey doesn’t seem to ask me what language I’m responding for, so how would another user see that I’ve responded for the Tajik language?

Other comments:

•1. In the Indian subcontinent, they don’t use “thousand separators”, just separators, which are placed in accordance with the way the number is read. They have words for thousand, a hundred thousand (“lakh”) and ten million (“krore”), example:

  12,54,39,871

i.e. reading backwards from the decimal point, group 3 digits, 2 digits, 2 digits, 2 digits … (the 2’s continue, AFAIK).

•2. In many non English languages, including ours, the decimal point is a comma, and the thousand separators are narrow spaces (narrow no-break space is the best Unicode character, I think). Will the Thousand separator box allow the “U+202F” notation? Perhaps common choices could be in a drop-down, to save looking up the Unicode value. Another good option for user-friendliness would be a drop-down like the one in the Windows Control Panel’s Customize Format: Number dialog, i.e. have options on the drop-down like comma, apostrophe, narrow no-break space, six-per-em space, but still allow the user to type their own choice.

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Comments

@wdavidhj

Regarding who’s answered for what language. It is rather awkard that the poll system doesn’t let me ask that, so I wrote:

Please have a look at the images and the poll questions below, and then at the replies to this message. If you see that someone has already replied for your language, please refrain from adding your vote.

Regarding your other comments, they’re outside the scope of what I am asking about here (hence the poll), so I will refrain from replying. All comments are taken into consideration, but I’d prefer to keep the replies as short as possible so that others can see what languages have been submitted already. Thank you!

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IanH:

All comments are taken into consideration, but I’d prefer to keep the replies as short as possible …

Sorry. Where should I have posted the additional suggestions that I included? PTFeatures?

IanH:

… so that others can see what languages have been submitted already.

I still don’t get how other ordinary users can see the names of the languages that people are submitting responses for . Two people responded, and one of them was me. I don’t see any record of which language the other respondent was giving answers for – is it there somewhere?

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@wdavidhj: Paratext 7.6 (currently beta) includes the option for S. Asian style grouping (lakh, crore, etc.)

@IanH: I too don’t see how to check what languages the existing responses represent. But more significantly, if you want responses from lots of languages, this page is not the place to ask the question. The average Paratext user is not subscribed to this group, which is aimed more at those giving support to other users (hence the name “Paratext Supporter Site”). Perhaps the LingTrans group would reach more people.

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And actually, regarding languages, I answered in reference to all the languages I supper in Nigeria…

Shegnada
Language Technology & Publishing Coordinator
Wycliffe Nigeria Group
Skype: Shegnada.james.
+[Phone Removed]

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Answer 2

I’ve closed this poll as it is for now, as I can see that two of the main questions are really ambiguous!

In your chosen language, is item “A/B” required?

Could mean, “should the option be in the dialog?”, or “should this be ticked in your language?”

I can’t edit this entry, so the poll will be back in a less ambiguous form soon… apologies!

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Comments

IanH:

Could mean, “should the option be in the dialog?”, or “should this be ticked in your language?”

For the record, I assumed it meant the latter, i.e. should it be ticked for my language.

I thought that the “sometimes option made it clear enough that this was what was being implied .

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Answer 3

How can non-breaking space be specified for the thousands separator?

See examples here:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/806-0169/overview-9/index.html

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