Package: xfonts-intl-phonetic
Version: 1.2.1-8
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
I noticed a couple of minor spelling/language issues in the package
descriptions for xfonts-intl-phonetic and emacs-intl-fonts, and
naturally ended up reviewing the whole control file. (This isn't
connected to the review for fonts-gfs-neohellenic that just came up as
bug #680936 - I was already looking at this before then.)
[...]
> Package: xfonts-intl-arabic
[...]
> Description: International fonts for X -- Arabic
^ ^^
The debian-l10n-english house style (and DevRef) would recommend
lowercase "I" and single dash.
> This package includes some Arabic fonts (digits and single and double
> column). You will need the fonts if you plan to view, print or author
> documents written in any of the Arabic languages.
"Single and double column" should probably have "characters" on the
end, and "you will need the fonts" should probably say "these fonts".
The d-l-e house style would add a "Harvard" comma after "print" (and
that style is already used in most lists in these descriptions).
"The Arabic languages" looks like an error - you could write Urdu (an
Indo-European language) with these fonts but not Maltese (a form of
Arabic). Say "documents written in an Arabic script".
> .
> The fonts are for use with the X Window System.
>
> Package: xfonts-intl-asian
[...]
> Description: International fonts for X -- Asian
> This package includes some Vietnamese, Indian, Lao, and Thai fonts.
> You will need the fonts if you plan to view, print or author documents
> written in any of the languages mentioned above.
A nomenclature problem: Hebrew, Korean, and Uzbek are also "Asian",
but out of scope for this collection; so wouldn't it make sense to use
some slightly more specific geographical label for these? After all,
it's clearly a grouping by region rather than anything more
fundamental or it wouldn't include VISCII. Saying "(south-east)
Asian" is a bit unwieldy, but there's room for it in the synopsis.
Then, what sort of order is "Vietnamese, Indian, Lao, and Thai"?
I'm tempted to suggest "Indian and Indochinese"; that would
misleadingly suggest it includes Khmer, but then again I already
suspect that "Indian" overstates its coverage.
And finally, the things listed above aren't all languages, or even
individual scripts; "Indian" is a whole family of scripts. Perhaps
"languages/scripts" would be vague enough.
> .
> The fonts are for use with the X Window System.
>
> Package: xfonts-intl-chinese
[...]
> Description: International fonts for X -- Chinese
> This package includes some GB2312, GB8565-88, BIG5 (ETen), and SiSheng
> Chinese fonts. You will need the fonts if you plan to view, print or author
> documents written in Chinese and using any of the encodings mentioned above.
"BIG5" should be "Big5" (it's not B.I.G.; it was developed by Taiwan's
top five IT firms). But I have no idea what "SiSheng fonts" would be;
isn't SiSheng a way of entering tone diacritics? Oh well, the rest of
it more or less makes sense.
(Why does this one, unlike for instance -arabic, go into so much
detail about encodings when the level of coverage makes encodings more
or less irrelevant? Couldn't it just say "documents written in
Chinese", and stop there?)
> .
> The fonts are for use with the X Window System.
>
> Package: xfonts-intl-chinese-big
[...]
> Description: International fonts for X -- Chinese big
> This package includes some GB2312 big Chinese fonts.
> You will need the fonts if you plan to view, print or author
> documents written in Chinese and using any of the encodings mentioned above.
Since "big" here means simply "large point-size", it should probably
use the word "large" and not one that makes readers wonder whether it
has something to do with Big5 or big-endianness or extensive character
sets.
"Any of the encodings" isn't appropriate here.
> .
> The fonts are for use with the X Window System.
>
> Package: xfonts-intl-european
[...]
> Description: International fonts for X -- European
> This package includes some ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1), ISO 8859-2 (Latin-2),
> ISO 8859-3 (Latin-3), ISO 8859-4 (Latin-4), ISO 8859-5 (Cyrillic),
> ISO 8859-7 (Greek), ISO 8859-8 (Hebrew), ISO 8859-9 (Latin-5), and KOI
> (Cyrillic) fonts. Also one ISO 8859-1 big font is included.
> You will need the fonts if you plan to view, print or author documents
> using any of the languages/encodings specified above.
As I mentioned, Hebrew is Asian (and a member of the "Afroasiatic"
language family), but I suppose if Israel gets into the Eurovision
Song Contest then Hebrew might as well be in the European font package
too (and we'll forget about the other continents that use Latin-based
scripts). I'll just rephrase the line about the "big font", change
"languages" to "scripts", and call that done. The encodings are even
listed in a sensible order!
(But why do the different packages disagree abo
