Last modified: 2011-04-14 15:12:39 UTC
In http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/WikimediaMessages/WikimediaGrammarForms.php?view=markup , we see an array of grammar forms of wiki names of the WMF. Almost all of them use the local sitename as an index, thus {{GRAMMAR:form indicator|{{SITENAME}}}} works in two cases: - the userlanguage and the wiki language are the same, - the sitename of the wikilanguage coincides with that of the user language. In all other cases, you get the value of {{SITENAME}} instead of correct grammar forms. I.e. potentially wrong, or unreadble texts. There are minor exceptions - for the Check language, for instance, there are the canonical English names of the wikis, too, being used as indexes to the $wgGrammarForms array, thus English wikis, and those having identically spelt local names, get correct grammar forms in Check, with their wiki names properly translated to Check. Why do we not use this way all the time? If we were using (canonical) wiki family names to address grammar forms, we would get correct grammar in the user language in all instances, and we were using the correct user language spelling (or a translated / transliterated form) of the wiki name, which is most likely what users want, who select a specific interface language. Even non-WMF wikis, when they form families of several languages, are likely to profit from this approach. Caveat: few languages use programmed code for GRAMMAR which needs to be integrated with this kind of change.
Interesting idea, but I don't see many uses outside of Wikimedia. Would need {{SITEFAMILYNAME}}, which defaults to {{SITENAME}} and change all messages to use it instead... sound complicated. Or some hacky maps to convert local {{SITENAME}} to family name in convert grammar function.