Some languages have different spellings of wordy numbers based on the gender of the things they're counting (uno crewmate versus una trinket) or what a number's role is in the sentence (e.g. twenta out of twentu). We've always had the idea we couldn't support such complex differences though, because the game can't be adapted to know what gender each object will have and what word classes might exist in other languages, so translators would in those cases just have to forgo the wordy numbers and just let the game use "20 out of 20".
A solution we came up semi-recently though (after all translations were finished except for Arabic), was to allow the translator to define however many classes of wordy numbers they need, and fill them all out. This would not need the game to be adapted for every language's specific grammar and word genders/classes. Instead, the translator would just choose their correct self-defined class at the time they use wordy in the VFormat placeholder. Something like {n|wordy|class=feminine}, or {n|wordy_feminine}.
So this would benefit several languages, but we came up with the solution a little late for all languages to benefit from it. The Arabic translators asked for two separate classes of wordy numbers though, so my plan is to first just have a second list of wordy numbers (translation2 in numbers.xml), which can be accessed by passing the wordy2 flag to VFormat, instead of wordy.
Once 2.4 is released, we can take our time to do it properly. This would involve the ability for translators to define however many classes they need, to name them what they want, and this name would then be useable in VFormat placeholders. We can convert all existing translations to have one class defined by default, such as "wordy", or "translation" depending on implementation, but there's not so much concern for maintaining backwards compatibility here, so we can do a mass-switchover for all language files. That said, it wouldn't be too hard to add a special case for "translation" being "wordy" either. We can then ask translators if they would like to change anything with the new system in place.
For now, we can use this system for Arabic, maybe Spanish since there were complaints about uno/una, and maybe Dutch (it has a thing where the number "one" is often capitalized differently, but it's not mandatory per se)
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[x] My changes may be used in a future commercial release of VVVVVV
[x] I will be credited in a CONTRIBUTORS file and the "GitHub Friends"
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Changes:
Some languages have different spellings of wordy numbers based on the gender of the things they're counting (uno crewmate versus una trinket) or what a number's role is in the sentence (e.g. twenta out of twentu). We've always had the idea we couldn't support such complex differences though, because the game can't be adapted to know what gender each object will have and what word classes might exist in other languages, so translators would in those cases just have to forgo the wordy numbers and just let the game use "20 out of 20".
A solution we came up semi-recently though (after all translations were finished except for Arabic), was to allow the translator to define however many classes of wordy numbers they need, and fill them all out. This would not need the game to be adapted for every language's specific grammar and word genders/classes. Instead, the translator would just choose their correct self-defined class at the time they use
wordyin the VFormat placeholder. Something like {n|wordy|class=feminine}, or {n|wordy_feminine}.So this would benefit several languages, but we came up with the solution a little late for all languages to benefit from it. The Arabic translators asked for two separate classes of wordy numbers though, so my plan is to first just have a second list of wordy numbers (translation2 in numbers.xml), which can be accessed by passing the
wordy2flag to VFormat, instead ofwordy.Once 2.4 is released, we can take our time to do it properly. This would involve the ability for translators to define however many classes they need, to name them what they want, and this name would then be useable in VFormat placeholders. We can convert all existing translations to have one class defined by default, such as "wordy", or "translation" depending on implementation, but there's not so much concern for maintaining backwards compatibility here, so we can do a mass-switchover for all language files. That said, it wouldn't be too hard to add a special case for "translation" being "wordy" either. We can then ask translators if they would like to change anything with the new system in place.
For now, we can use this system for Arabic, maybe Spanish since there were complaints about uno/una, and maybe Dutch (it has a thing where the number "one" is often capitalized differently, but it's not mandatory per se)
Legal Stuff:
By submitting this pull request, I confirm that...
CONTRIBUTORSfile and the "GitHub Friends" section of the credits for all of said releases, but will NOT be compensated for these changes