Additional French Time Patterns ?

Tue May 5 07:52:40 CDT 2015

Those are good comments. Very briefly, what is there for French should be
the most common, customary form; if not, we should change it. We could also
offer different formats for time and date ('alt' forms). However, our
immediate target is programmer APIs, since that is how these formats will
be selected and eventually shown to users. That means that the options have
to make sense across languages, since few programs will want to be littered
with specialized calls. People don't want to see in their code the
equivalent of "if it is French and I'm displaying in a train station, use
ALT5, while if it is Kazakh and I'm displaying in a movie theater use ALT3,
..."

We faced a similar problem with casing, and ended up developing the casing
context. Rolling that out has taken many releases, so we're still not done
with that.

I'm not saying that it can't be done, but rather that we haven't yet got a
good model for how to make the work that would go into alternate forms be
useful.

As far as the am/pm goes, we are rolling out new dayperiod support. It is
targetted mostly at languages that use different periods than AM/PM or 24
hour, but there is support for longer or shorter forms. Cf.
http://cldr.unicode.org/translation/date-time-names#TOC-Day-Periods-AM-and-PM-

Mark <https://google.com/+MarkDavis>

*— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —*

On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 8:00 AM, Patrick Andries <
patrick.andries at xcential.com> wrote:

>  I also noticed the usage of AM and PM here for French :
> http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/v#/fr/Gregorian/5c6d3896851453de
>
> This is not at all customary in French.
>
> This official reference in Quebec says that if the AM/PM need to be
> specified it should be *« du matin* » and  « de* l’après-midi* ». But
> this is more how one speaks than how one writes in official documents
> (which nearly always use the 24 hour clock).
>
> http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?th=2&id=1516
> http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=2718
>
> P. A.
>
>
>
> Le 01/mai/2015 13:53, Steven R. Loomis a écrit :
>
> Patrick, some good comments, if it does not get traction on this list
> please file a cldr bug thanks.
>
> Enviado desde nuestro iPhone.
>
> El may 1, 2015, a las 10:45 AM, Patrick Andries <
> patrick.andries at xcential.com> escribió:
>
>   About : http://demo.icu-project.org/icu-bin/locexp?d_=en&_=fr (Date &
> Time Patterns)
>
> It has been a long time since I thought I should mention that I find the
> time patterns for French a bit too simplistic and English-like.
>
> Well, it really depends what the patterns are used for. I wonder how CLDR
> could offer more flexibility to French localizers so that they could easily
> use different time formats from the current ones, if they so wish.
> "Traditional French time patterns", let me call them.
>
> For hours indicated on schedules (in front of churches, on train time
> table, on a log, in correspondence, etc.), the recommended way is to write
> "10 h 20" or "23 h 15", for instance. My spell checker (Antidote) always
> reminds me of this when I quote an email message and suggests me to change
> English styled times (12:34) into French styled times (12 h 34).
>
> It is a bit different for running time displayed very quickly to show, for
> instance, the precise elapsed time. There, we have got accustomed to
> formats like 18:28:38,8365 (best with a comma decimal separator), but it is
> not the original French format (see below).
>
> Admittedly, not all sources agree on the precise usage (zero suppression
> for instance and what to do when seconds are mentioned).
>
> But here is an overview of some typographical style guides :
> Sources :
>
> See "heure" entry in Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à
> l'Imprimerie nationale (Paris, France). "Le train de 8 h 47". I can quote
> more  from/scan the page if necessary.
>
> See entries "402 Durée"  (4 h 04) "412 Heure" (8 h 17, 11 h, 0 h 15, 17 h
> 07' 02'' zero suppressed in duration it says there : 93 h 3 ' 8'') in Guide
> du typographe roman (Lausanne, Switzerland).
>
> See entry "écritures des heures" in Le Ramat de la typographie
> (Saint-Lambert, Québec, Canada). Usage is to use "h" with hours every time
> date is written in letters :  le 1er mai 1997 à 16 h 05". Suggests writing
> 06:00 or even 0600 for time tables (air plane leaving at such a time). For
> durations: 6 h 5 min (with the leading zero suppressed).
>
> See
> http://reseauaffairesplus.com/francisation/regles-d-usage/redaction/-criture_de_l-heure-.html
>
> See SNCF (French Railways) :
> http://www.voyages-sncf.com/billet-train/horaires, although it is missing
> a space before and after the "h". But are computer generated strings a
> reference ? ;-) I only mention this very popular web site to show that this
> usage is alive and not "obsolete".
>
> Patrick
>
>
> <iiaijeac.png>
>
>
>
>
>
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