Locale IDs Assigned by [some unknown part of] Microsoft [Kevin only knows when!]

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2012/06/29 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2012/06/29/10323350.aspx


Today's riff will be on the page titled Locale IDs Assigned by Microsoft.

This page, largely produced some time after XP and Server 2003 shipped, by an unknown person or people, has everything.

EVERYTHING.

Like one Sorbian, rather than the two we have in Windows now, using the LCID we call Upper Sorbian:

Sorbian 042e

or a bunch of other locales we've changed the name of for various reasons:

FYRO Macedonian 042f 

 Farsi 0429

Uighur - China 0480

A couple of Azeris 

 A couple of Bengalis

Inuktitut!

or one I doubt we'll ever have (even if a professor convinced someone to add an LCID years ago!):

Yiddish! Is this a joke?

There is even one with the wrong LCID! 

The Scottish Gaelic LCID is actually 0491! 

And a lot more French locales than we've ever shipped:

There's a whole Lotta Frenches going on! 

And a bunch of locales that are likely worth considering some day:

Well, we added one in Sindhi in Windows 8, at least!

 Somali, anyone?

Where do they speak Sepedi, anyway? 

I want me some Ibibio!

Rhaeto-Romanic?

Manipuri

Kanuri - Nigeria

Oreomo and Papiamentu

The other Tsonga!

Edo

 Venda is not the language Vendors speak!

 Moldava? Moldova? Moldavia? Whichever, we don't have them yet!

 Guarani - Paraguay is one I'd really like to see!

 And there are ones we might even be able to add now:

 We'd finally be able to look at Burmese

 And ones we still can't add yet:

But Kashmiri is still out of bounds... 

 There's even one with [to some] somewhat offensive parathetical text that actually have nine locales now:

 Just Sami alone is fine

You get the point.

This list is insane! It's really the best example of why we should never have lists! :-)


Doug Ewell on 29 Jun 2012 7:17 AM:

I don't understand the last sentence. The list has a disclaimer that these might not all be implemented.

Isn't "FYRO Macedonian" kind of silly? Greece can complain about the name of the country all they like, and force us all to use the ungainly "FYRO" name, but why apply it to the language?

Michael S. Kaplan on 29 Jun 2012 7:48 AM:

Yes, but is the list really needed? What purpose does it serve to publish at all any list outside of the one in the protocol docs?

John Cowan on 29 Jun 2012 7:54 AM:

Better yet, simply don't document anything at all.  Leave all to be done by people sniffing around the code -- Oh, no code?  Well then.

Michael S. Kaplan on 29 Jun 2012 8:00 AM:

Obviously with gigabytes of docs on MSDN, TechNet, et. al., we don't go that route. But the protocol doc list is responsible and accurate, whereas random lists are just unbound by common sense rules of correctneess.

Always document, but always make sure they are accurate and stay that way....

:) on 1 Jul 2012 6:48 AM:

>or one I doubt we'll ever have (even if a professor convinced someone to add an LCID years ago!):

far vus nisht?


Please consider a donation to keep this archive running, maintained and free of advertising.
Donate €20 or more to receive an offline copy of the whole archive including all images.

go to newer or older post, or back to index or month or day