Launchpad itself

Translating into Hawaiian Language plural items ?

Asked by Bernard Stafford

Translating into Hawaiian Language plural items.

Launchpad can’t handle the plural items in this file, because it doesn’t yet know how plural forms work for Hawaiian.

If you have this information, please visit the Answers application to see whether anyone has submitted it yet. If not, please file the information there as a question. The preferred format for such questions is described in the Frequently Asked Questions list.

This only needs to be done once per language. Thanks for helping Launchpad Translations.
Example: English --> Hawaiian right --> akau rights --> kuleana download --> hoʻoiho downloads ---> mau hoʻoiho

Please add Hawaiian Language as translatable. This shows plural forms of this language.
This has not been asked before. I checked as directed above.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Launchpad itself Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Colin Watson
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Bernard Stafford (bernard010) said : 		#1

This is for translating BleachBit in Hawaiian language.
https://translations.launchpad.net/bleachbit/trunk/+pots/bleachbit/

Revision history for this message
Best Colin Watson (cjwatson) said : 		#2

I've configured Launchpad accordingly.

(Consensus from the small sample of haw.po files I could find on the internet was that the correct plural form expression for Hawaiian is n != 1 rather than n > 1 - i.e. the zero case looks like the plural case. If this isn't correct then please elaborate. https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Plural-forms.html describes the details of what we need to capture here.)

Revision history for this message
Bernard Stafford (bernard010) said : 		#3

I am having to agree with you. I did a lot of research since this posted. I chose 50 words from basic computer "terms'.
I could only find plural forms of 23. The rest of the 27 words only have a singular meaning. Hawaiian can be very
complicated language when it has to do with plural forms. Some words have a completely different spelling.
https://www.mauimapp.com/moolelo/hwnwdseng.htm

I thank you for your candid and honest reply.
Yes I agree their must be complete full plural forms of language to be usable.
Thank you very much.
Respectfully,
Bernard Staffod

Revision history for this message
Bernard Stafford (bernard010) said : 		#4

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-make-words-plural-in-Hawaiian
Singular in Hawaiian language is: ka or ke.
Plural is: nā or mau
Or it is marked as a plural determiner over a vowel of the singular word.
Such as: kanaka (pl = kānaka), human being.

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) said : 		#5

We don't need to know the details of exactly how Hawaiian nouns are declined, so please don't spend time explaining them. The only thing that's important is how many and which different versions of a sentence might need to be translated in the case where a number is substituted into the translated string. As an English example:

  You have 0 results.
  You have 1 result.
  You have 2 results.
  You have 3 results.
  ...

Since this pattern generalises to all English nouns (at most, the 1 and not-1 case might happen to be the same, for example "sheep"), this is expressed by saying that the language has two plural forms and plural form expression n!=1. A hypothetical translator would then write:

  msgstr[0] "You have %d result."
  msgstr[1] "You have %d results."

Revision history for this message
Bernard Stafford (bernard010) said : 		#6

Thanks, I agree. Most all Hawaiian speak read and wright US English.