Russian, and the first real use of the plural machinery #155

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opened 2026-08-31 19:38:48 +00:00 by jcoffey-dev · 0 comments

jcoffey-dev commented

2026-08-31 19:38:48 +00:00

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781 of 796 strings. Generated by AI, unreviewed, marked Beta. First of Phase 2.

This is the catalogue `plural()` was designed for

Russian needs three forms where English has two, and the choice isn't a question about the number 1:

n	category	renders
1, 21	`one`	`1 письмо`
2–4, 22	`few`	`2 письма`
5–20, 25	`many`	`5 писем`
11–14	`many`	`11 писем` — despite ending in 1–4

Intl.PluralRules knows all of that. A two-form assumption would have shipped "5 письмо" and read as machine output however good the vocabulary was.

Tested against the shipped catalogue, not a fixture — 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 21, 22, 25 and 0 — plus a check that every counted string carries all four categories. A missing few falls back to other silently, and is grammatical often enough to go unnoticed.

"Выбрано: {n}" for the selection count rather than an agreeing form: the impersonal construction sidesteps agreement entirely, and is what Russian interfaces actually do there.

Decisions

Register is вы, lowercase. Capitalised «Вы» is correspondence style — it reads as a letter addressed to one person rather than as software, so it'd be a small constant wrongness on every screen. Most of the interface avoids the question anyway: Russian UI convention is the infinitive for actions («Удалить», «Ответить»).

«Письмо» not «сообщение» for a mail message — what Russian mail clients call one; «сообщение» reads as a chat message.

«Ярлык» for label — Gmail's word in Russian. A fifth answer to the same rule about using what the reader will meet elsewhere.

One thing worth recording

A stray CJK character got typed into one Russian sentence while drafting, and was caught by sweeping the file for anything outside the expected scripts. Not a mistake a spellcheck would find, and not one a reader would forgive.

Checks

461 tests (+2), typecheck, build clean. npm run i18n:check reports ru at 98% with no stale keys. 61 kB chunk — larger than the Latin-script catalogues, as Cyrillic costs more per character before gzip.

Still Beta. First things I'd want a Russian speaker to check: «Цепочка» for conversation (vs «Переписка»), and «Профиль отправителя» for identity, which is descriptive rather than a term of art.

Merged 2026-08-31 as coffey-labs/ihasmail@1eb31450a4

_{Rebuilt from: git history, session transcript.}

**781 of 796 strings.** Generated by AI, unreviewed, marked **Beta**. First of Phase 2. ## This is the catalogue `plural()` was designed for Russian needs three forms where English has two, and the choice isn't a question about the number 1: | n | category | renders | |---|---|---| | 1, 21 | `one` | `1 письмо` | | 2–4, 22 | `few` | `2 письма` | | 5–20, 25 | `many` | `5 писем` | | **11–14** | `many` | `11 писем` — despite ending in 1–4 | `Intl.PluralRules` knows all of that. A two-form assumption would have shipped **"5 письмо"** and read as machine output however good the vocabulary was. **Tested against the shipped catalogue, not a fixture** — 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 21, 22, 25 and 0 — plus a check that every counted string carries all four categories. A missing `few` falls back to `other` silently, and is grammatical often enough to go unnoticed. `"Выбрано: {n}"` for the selection count rather than an agreeing form: the impersonal construction sidesteps agreement entirely, and is what Russian interfaces actually do there. ## Decisions **Register is `вы`, lowercase.** Capitalised «Вы» is correspondence style — it reads as a letter addressed to one person rather than as software, so it'd be a small constant wrongness on every screen. Most of the interface avoids the question anyway: Russian UI convention is the infinitive for actions («Удалить», «Ответить»). **«Письмо» not «сообщение»** for a mail message — what Russian mail clients call one; «сообщение» reads as a chat message. **«Ярлык» for label** — Gmail's word in Russian. A fifth answer to the same rule about using what the reader will meet elsewhere. ## One thing worth recording A stray CJK character got typed into one Russian sentence while drafting, and was caught by sweeping the file for anything outside the expected scripts. Not a mistake a spellcheck would find, and not one a reader would forgive. ## Checks 461 tests (+2), typecheck, build clean. `npm run i18n:check` reports ru at 98% with no stale keys. 61 kB chunk — larger than the Latin-script catalogues, as Cyrillic costs more per character before gzip. Still Beta. First things I'd want a Russian speaker to check: «Цепочка» for conversation (vs «Переписка»), and «Профиль отправителя» for identity, which is descriptive rather than a term of art. **Merged** 2026-08-31 as coffey-labs/ihasmail@1eb31450a41c <sub>Rebuilt from: git history, session transcript.</sub>

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Reference: coffey-labs/ihasmail-github-archive#155

Russian, and the first real use of the plural machinery #155

This is the catalogue plural() was designed for

Decisions

One thing worth recording

Checks

This is the catalogue `plural()` was designed for