[Rd] Natural vs National in R signon banner?

[Peter Dalgaard]

Just leave it, I think. Some nations have 4 national languages (as Martin will know), some languages are not national, and adopted children often do not speak their native (=born) language... I suspect someone already put a substantial amount of thought into the terminology.

-pd


> On 1 Sep 2017, at 09:45 , Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
> 
>>>>>> Paul McQuesten <mcquesten at gmail.com>
>>>>>>    on Thu, 31 Aug 2017 18:48:12 -0500 writes:
> 
>> Actually, I do agree with you about Microsoft.
>> But they have so many users that their terminology should not be ignored.
> 
>> Here are a few more views:
> 
>> https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_71/com.ibm.aix.performance/natl_lang_supp_locale_speed.htm
>> https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23824_01/html/E26033/glmbx.html
>> http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/nlsref/69741/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n1n9bwctsthuqbn1xgipyw5xwujl.htm
>> https://docs.intersystems.com/latest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY=GSA_config_nls
>> https://sites.ualberta.ca/dept/chemeng/AIX-43/share/man/info/C/a_doc_lib/aixprggd/genprogc/nls.htm
>> http://scc.ustc.edu.cn/zlsc/tc4600/intel/2017.0.098/compiler_f/common/core/GUID-1AEC889E-98A7-4A7D-91B3-865C476F603D.html
> 
>> It does appear, however, that what I call 'National Language' is often
>> referred to as 'Native Language'. And the 'National Language' terminology
>> is said to not be used consistently:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_language
> 
>> I do still feel, however, that claiming 'Natural Language' support in R
>> sets expectations of new users overly high.
> 
>> Thank you for spending so much time on such a minor nit.
> 
> continuing the nits and gnats :
> 
> I think I now understand what you mean.  From the little I
> understand about English intricacies and with my not
> fully developed gut feeling of good English (which I rarely
> speak but sometimes appreciate when reading / listening),
> I would indeed
> 
> prefer  'Native Language'
> to	'Natural Language'	
> 
> Martin Maechler
> ETH Zurich
> 
>> Regards
> 
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 5:45 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
> 
>>> On 31/08/2017 6:37 PM, Paul McQuesten wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Thanks, Duncan. But if it is not inappropriate, I feel empowered to argue.
>>>> 
>>>> According to this definition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>>>> Natural_language:
>>>> In neuropsychology, linguistics and the philosophy of language, a
>>>> natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved
>>>> naturally in humans ...
>>>> 
>>>> Thus this banner statement may appear over-claiming to a significant
>>>> fraction of R users.
>>>> 
>>>> It seems that LOCALE is called 'National language' support in other
>>>> software systems.
>>>> Eg: https://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/goglobal/default.mspx
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I wouldn't take Microsoft as an authority on this (or much of anything).
>>> They really are amazingly incompetent, considering how much money they earn.
>>> 
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> And, yes, this is a low priority issue. All of you have better things to
>>>> do.
>>>> 
>>>> R is an extremely powerful and comprehensive software system.
>>>> Thank you all for that.
>>>> And I would like to clean one gnat from the windshield.
>>>> 
>>>> I just wax pedantic at times.
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 5:13 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On 31/08/2017 5:38 PM, Paul McQuesten wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The R signon banner includes this statement:
>>>> Natural language support but running in an English locale
>>>> 
>>>> Should that not say 'National' instead of 'Natural'?
>>>> Meaning that LOCALE support is enabled, not that the interface
>>>> understands
>>>> human language?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> No, "natural language" refers to human languages, but it doesn't
>>>> imply that R understands them.  NLS just means that messages may be
>>>> presented in (or translated to) other human languages in an
>>>> appropriate context.
>>>> 
>>>> For example, you can start R on most platforms from the console using
>>>> 
>>>> LANGUAGE=de R
>>>> 
>>>> and instead of the start message you saw, you'll see
>>>> 
>>>> R ist freie Software und kommt OHNE JEGLICHE GARANTIE.
>>>> Sie sind eingeladen, es unter bestimmten Bedingungen weiter zu
>>>> verbreiten.
>>>> Tippen Sie 'license()' or 'licence()' für Details dazu.
>>>> 
>>>> and so on.
>>>> 
>>>> Please ignore this and forgive me if this is an inappropriate
>>>> post. I am a
>>>> N00B in R.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I don't think it is inappropriate.
>>>> 
>>>> Duncan Murdoch
> 
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-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
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