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Unite Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese into PortugueseEdit

Related discussion have been opened in wiki.pt: pt:Wikipédia:Esplanada/geral/Unificação do Português e do Português do Brasil no Meta (9mai2021)

Tracked in Phabricator:
task T55789

Given that: 1) despite being linguistic variants, except for specific cases (usually solved by the context), both variants are understood by all Portuguese speakers; 2) there are a huge number of pages not translated into Portuguese, and the difference in variants doubles the work needed (see: Universal Code of Conduct); 3) there is a valid orthographic agreement, which homogenizes orthographic and grammatical issues (see: en:Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990);
I suggest that: both be unified into just Portuguese, exactly as it is on the pt.wiki.
As on the pt.wiki, controversies would be resolved like this: the variant used in the creation of the page should be kept and although one can write or translate in another variant (as few are able to write in both variants) it is allowed to correct later additions to the page creation variant. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 11:40, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Oppose Strongly disagree. There are vast differences in vocabulary and grammar. Some are indeed small, but others are not. Despite a high level of mutual mutual intelligibility, a large number of everyday terms is virtually unknown to speakers of the other variant. Coupled with differences in grammar, this make reading unnecessarily harder. The 1990 agreement has only affected a very small fraction of words. Differences are way more vast than differences between british and american english, so there's no point in using this as a comparison.

With 5x more users and 15x more population than the other portuguese-speaking contries combined, it's fairly obvious to predict that in a short time changes from standart portuguese to brazilian portuguese will be so overwhelming that they will be hard to monitor or undo, leading to the extinction of the former. This is already happening in pt.wiki. When efforts are being made all around the world to preserve local languages and variants (Wikimedia projects included), I find appalling such constant and systematic efforts to 'morph' everything in brazilian portuguese.

The OP problem can be easily fixed: the system can make the other variant the second default language, instead of english. This is what happens in Wikidata. JMagalhães (talk) 16:24, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Support I agree with this solution, solve my problem.--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 17:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Jdforrester (WMF) Could you please check the technical feasibility of this proposed modification? Personally I understand that the technical decision comes after the political one, but there are those who defend the opposite.--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 14:20, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@Felipe da Fonseca, yes, it's theoretically possible for us to re-purpose pt to be international Portuguese, with pt-pt and pt-br used for local variation where appropriate (that's closer to international standards of language codes, and so probably a not-bad direction of travel generally). However, I'm just one engineer; my colleagues in the mw:Language Engineering team would be much better-placed to give advice. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Jdforrester (WMF) thank you very much for your answer. I'm not sure if we are understanding each other... this is an eminently technical issue, I'll try to be clearer. JMagalhães' proposal, with which I agree and we will probably reach a consensus is: if I choose my official system language as Portuguese, the Brazilian Portuguese variant will become the second default and English will become only the third -- i.e. if there is no page in the Portuguese variant, before opening the page in English, it would open the page in Brazilian Portuguese -- the opposite would also be the case: if my system is configured with Brazilian Portuguese and there is no page in this variant, then it would first open Portuguese and only then, if there is no page in this variant too, it would open English. Is that technically possible? --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 23:22, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@Felipe da Fonseca Yes, pt-pt and pt-br could both fall back to pt before en (i.e. pt-pt > pt > en and pt-br > pt > en), or even pt could fall back to pt-pt and then pt-br before en (pt > pt-pt > pt-br > en) theoretically, but there can't be loops (i.e. pt-br can't fall back to pt if pt falls back to pt-br). However, as I said, this is something you should ask the Language team about, as it may conflict with things of which I'm not aware. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 00:42, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Jdforrester (WMF) thanks. Actually what we need is: ( pt-pt > pt-br > en) and (pt-br > pt-pt > en), so... its looks like we have a loop. The other alternatives were not what we were thinking of, but I will take this up for discussion, if the difference in the number of translated pages of each variant is too big, we might just accept one of the options. Could you ping here or refer me to someone from the "Language Team", please?--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 09:39, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Support If the unification is based on the en:Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990, I agree with the proposal, as it will avoid previous variants in the unified Portuguese language for all Portuguese-speaking countries. If this is not possible, unfortunately, there would be no way to approve the unification, not least in order to not displease those who prefer the 1945 variants. WikiFer ^msg 21:52, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Support I agree with the entirety of Felipe da Fonseca's arguments, but as pointed out, the second default language solution proposed by JMagalhães suits a consensus well. Even though it's highly unlike any degree of unintelligibility between the linguistic variants, I believe we must take into consideration the Portuguese concern regarding Brazilian dominance, furthermore, when we consider the African and Asian speakers of the language - the true minorities on the matter. I understand WikiFer's argument on the en:Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 previous variants issue, but looking ahead from it, another approach is needed: (1) when we consider the language as a living thing, and not tamed by formal conventions; (2) when we find ourselves dealing with a collaborative encyclopedia being build by radically different people. Tolerance to diversity over formalized unity. Kind regards to all, CalliandraDysantha (talk) 23:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

The following two questions were raised in the pt.wiki: 1) should the variant name "Português" be changed to "Português Europeu" (European Portuguese)? 2) adopting the proposal to place one variant as the automatic second option to the other, the question remains: when a page has been poorly translated, say less than 30%, for a few months now, should the page be deleted for the system to pull the other variant?--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 10:56, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Felipe da Fonseca I'm fine with renaming the variant, but don't think it makes a lot of difference. Those ideal scenarios seem like new features to this system that are unlikely to be implemented in the short or medium term. I do not see the point of discussing this in a technical vacuum. Have you discussed this with any mediawiki/extension developer? Is there anyone willing to develop this? Chico Venancio (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Chicocvenancio I'm sorry, but I really don't understand you - which vacuum? Which proposal are you referring to? Mine or from JMagalhães? I have changed for some time now and accepted JMagalhães'proposal as superior. So, the consensus is consolidating in his proposal. In any case, political and technical decisions are diverse, if there are no technical staff to implement the change, that is a completely different problem from the political one. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 00:11, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose per JMagalhães. The proposal solves no problem and takes away the possibility of having the translations into the 2 variants.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 23:06, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

DarwIn It is not exactly correct what you say, there is a problem and the proposal does solve the problem. However, it brings another problem, which is the suppression of European Portuguese as alleged. In any case, the JMagalhães proposal solves the existing problem and does not create this other one. A consensus is therefore being consolidated on this proposal by JMagalhães.--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 00:11, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Oppose While the main namespace is a place where duplication is costly, specially in terms of volunteer time, copying translations for docs have a trivial cost. We also need to have the best translation possible for several important documents in the movement (licenses, ToU, CoC, etc), disallowing Portuguese variants will not help. Chico Venancio (talk) 23:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Chicocvenancio Could you give your opinion about JMagalhães'proposal? As I said above, a consensus can be established on his proposal.--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 13:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose My opinion is it is useless to discuss without knowing if it is possible. Once technical feasibility has been established we can discuss if it is desirable. Chico Venancio (talk) 13:25, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Complete inversion of values. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 14:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Support as WikiFer says. Alex Pereira ^falaê 12:38, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Comment - I think there might be some confusion here, regarding what exactly is being requested, and what already exists.

I.e. If I understand correctly, we do already have circular fallback for Pt ↔ Pt-br at a basic level for entire pages (per mw:Manual:Language#Fallback_languages - see bottom-right corner of that image), and that system does work properly if an entire page is only translated into a single variant - E.g. If I set my language to Pt, and visit Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/17 (which was only translated into Pt-br), then it will show me the Pt-br version.

The problem is when a page has been partially translated into both variants. E.g. at Special:MyLanguage/Universal Code of Conduct it will show me the Pt version because someone has translated the page-title (but nothing else).

What you are asking for, is a new way for the system to work.

E.g.1. Perhaps it could create a unique jigsaw page that takes existing content from either variant. So in the UCoC example, it would show me the title in Pt but all other translated content in Pt-br, and untranslated content in En. (That sounds like the ideal, but I would imagine it is technically very very complex, and perhaps not possible given the current technical backend infrastructure?).

E.g.2. Or perhaps it could work similar to the existing setup, but if a page only has 5% or less translated into one variant (e.g. Pt), the system will check the other variant (e.g. Pt-br), and if that variant has 10% or more translated, it will give that page to the user. [Using random numbers just as examples] (That might be more technically feasible, and be good enough to resolve most of the actual problems?)

If that overall description of the problem is accurate, then I suggest asking the mw:Language Engineering team what is technically possible, along those lines. Quiddity (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Quiddity thank you for the clarification. To me personally it seems that it is enough to implement the second alternative, also because it is technically easier (as you say and from what is intuible). I will ask at mw:Language Engineering team. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 19:14, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually I think Quiddity’s second option is less feasible—Special:MyLanguage is a feature of core MediaWiki (source code), and has no notion about page translation and its progress (or even actual language codes—https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Template:Ll?uselang=doc happily redirects to {{ll}}’s documentation subpage, assuming that doc is a valid language code). Option 1, on the other hand, should happen entirely within the Translate extension, which does know what is translation, translation units, missing translation units, whether and how to mark up translation units that are not in the translation units (since last fall, untranslated bits are marked up with appropriate HTML to mark that they are in the source language), and so on. It surely needs some refactoring to deal with the fact that it should take more than two languages into account, and updating a translation can affect more than one page (if the Brazilian Portuguese translation of some translation unit is updated, and there’s no European Portuguese translation for that unit, both Portuguese pages should be updated), but I think it’s still more feasible. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 21:43, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree with Tacsipacsi. Felipe da Fonseca, you should probably open a Phabricator task with MediaWiki-extensions-Translate tag as a feature request with a title like “Use fallback language to complete partial translation pages” (or something like that).

The only severe issue I see is the performance cost because translation page building is already weighty. -- Pols12 (talk) 22:54, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I asked at mw:Language Engineering team.Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 00:42, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually the tasks already exists as “Translation pages display English even if there is translation available in close variant language.”. --Pols12 (talk) 12:26, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose In my opinion it should not be united because there is a considerable difference between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese --Eduardoaddad (talk) 14:35, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Neutral If there should have separate variants per country, we need to have a mechanism to convert between them, otherwise it's weird. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:03, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Help with translation of a single sentenceEdit

Hello friends,

I hope you are doing well and keeping safe.

Please help with translating this single sentence.

See the translation link below:

https://w.wiki/3Zzp

Thank you for your help

Best regards. T Cells^Talk 14:45, 1 July 2021 (UTC)