Document the nine languages, and what Beta means on them #163

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opened 2026-08-31 22:17:59 +00:00 by jcoffey-dev · 0 comments

jcoffey-dev commented

2026-08-31 22:17:59 +00:00

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The translations shipped today; the docs still said "no languages but English". They also need to say the harder thing, which is that eight of the nine have never been read by anybody who speaks them.

README — the language list, with the Beta caveat on the same line rather than as a footnote.

FEATURES.md — a new Interface language section: the nine, why it is a separate setting from the date-and-time locale, and the two properties that come from the design rather than the translation:

a missing entry renders its English source, so deleting a bad line is a valid fix rather than a regression
plurals are asked of Intl.PluralRules, never assumed — Russian and Ukrainian get their three forms, Japanese and Chinese get the one they have, with counters doing the work a plural would

ROADMAP.md — translations are no longer listed as "not yet", because they exist. What replaces the entry is the half that genuinely is not done: a translation anybody has checked, with an explicit ask, since a speaker willing to read a few hundred strings is the one contribution nothing else substitutes for. RTL is split out as its own entry — holding Arabic, Hebrew and Persian back is a layout decision, not a queue position, and the old text buried that in a sentence about ordering.

KNOWN-ISSUES.md — two entries:

Eight of nine languages have never been read by a speaker. Framed as the one thing on that page that cannot be closed by testing: a catalogue can be complete, consistent, pass every check and still read like a machine wrote it, and nobody here can tell which. What is verified is recorded — the fallback behaviour, the stale-key check, and the live run against the 6,289-message mailbox where 6,289 came out as 6289 листувань, the genitive plural a number ending in nine takes.
i18n:coverage read 100% while ~200 strings rendered English in every language. The calendar switcher spelled its own labels from the view id — correct English, untranslatable anywhere else, and the four words were already sitting in all nine catalogues unused. Recorded as a general lesson rather than an i18n one.

The stale "Planned order" paragraph in ROADMAP is removed: both phases shipped, so it described the past as a plan.

Merged 2026-08-31 as coffey-labs/ihasmail@874887eb36

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

The translations shipped today; the docs still said *"no languages but English"*. They also need to say the harder thing, which is that eight of the nine have never been read by anybody who speaks them. **README** — the language list, with the Beta caveat on the same line rather than as a footnote. **FEATURES.md** — a new *Interface language* section: the nine, why it is a separate setting from the date-and-time locale, and the two properties that come from the design rather than the translation: - a missing entry renders its English source, so deleting a bad line is a valid fix rather than a regression - plurals are asked of `Intl.PluralRules`, never assumed — Russian and Ukrainian get their three forms, Japanese and Chinese get the one they have, with counters doing the work a plural would **ROADMAP.md** — translations are no longer listed as "not yet", because they exist. What replaces the entry is the half that genuinely is not done: *a translation anybody has checked*, with an explicit ask, since a speaker willing to read a few hundred strings is the one contribution nothing else substitutes for. RTL is split out as its own entry — holding Arabic, Hebrew and Persian back is a layout decision, not a queue position, and the old text buried that in a sentence about ordering. **KNOWN-ISSUES.md** — two entries: 1. **Eight of nine languages have never been read by a speaker.** Framed as the one thing on that page that cannot be closed by testing: a catalogue can be complete, consistent, pass every check and still read like a machine wrote it, and nobody here can tell which. What *is* verified is recorded — the fallback behaviour, the stale-key check, and the live run against the 6,289-message mailbox where 6,289 came out as *6289 листувань*, the genitive plural a number ending in nine takes. 2. **`i18n:coverage` read 100% while ~200 strings rendered English in every language.** The calendar switcher spelled its own labels from the view id — correct English, untranslatable anywhere else, and the four words were already sitting in all nine catalogues unused. Recorded as a general lesson rather than an i18n one. The stale "Planned order" paragraph in ROADMAP is removed: both phases shipped, so it described the past as a plan. **Merged** 2026-08-31 as coffey-labs/ihasmail@874887eb36bc <sub>Rebuilt from: git history, session transcript.</sub>

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Reference: coffey-labs/ihasmail-github-archive#163