Unicode CLDR v45 released

The Unicode CLDR v45 is now available and has been integrated into version 75 of ICU. The CLDR v45 release page has information on accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.) For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

CLDR 45 did not have a Survey Tool submission phase, and focused on tooling and just a few functional areas:

MessageFormat 2.0 Tech Preview

Software needs to construct messages that incorporate various pieces of information. The complexities of the world's languages make this challenging. The goal for MessageFormat 2.0 is to allow developers and translators to create natural-sounding, grammatically-correct, user interfaces that can appear in any language and support the needs of various cultures.

The new MessageFormat defines the data model, syntax, processing, and conformance requirements for the next generation of dynamic messages. It is intended for adoption by programming languages, software libraries, and software localization tooling. It enables the integration of internationalization APIs (such as date or number formats), and grammatical matching (such as plurals or genders). It is extensible, allowing software developers to create formatting or message selection logic that add on to the core capabilities. Its data model provides the means of representing existing syntaxes, thus enabling gradual adoption by users of older formatting systems.
See also:

• UTW { } MessageFormat v2 (November 7, 2023)
  
• Message Format Virtual Open House (February 20, 2024)

Keyboard 3.0 stable version

Keyboard support for digitally disadvantaged languages (DDLs) is often lacking or inconsistent between platforms. The updated LDML Keyboard 3.0 format specifies an interchange format for keyboard data. This will allow keyboard authors to create a single mapping file for their language, which implementations can use to provide that language’s keyboard mapping on their own platform. This format allows both physical and virtual (that is, on-screen or touch) keyboard layouts for a language to be defined in a single file.

See also:

• CLDR, Beyond Locale Data (June 22, 2023)
  

Tooling changes

Many tooling changes are difficult to accommodate in a data-submission release, including performance work and UI improvements. The changes in v45 provide faster turn-around for linguists and higher data quality. They are targeted at the v46 submission period, starting in May, 2024.

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MessageFormat 2 Technical Preview Available

The MessageFormat Working Group is pleased to announce that it has released a Technical Preview implementation of the current state of the MessageFormat 2 specification in ICU4J in the recent ICU 72 release. The Working Group has been working on a specification for a successor to ICU MessageFormat, which has been an industry staple for internationalized software for more than two decades.

Owing to the prevalence of MessageFormat not just as an API for software, but also given its syntax serving as a de facto serialization format for the localized messages sent to the API, the Working Group has put careful consideration into interchange and interoperability. Some goals of the new specification include promoting best practices for internationalization, including compatibility with localization industry supported XLIFF. Another goal includes a definition of the data model of the API input separate from the syntax to allow for multiple compliant syntaxes to be compatible. Similarly, the specification includes a registry of interfaces for dependent formatting functions, in order to cleanly separate implementation from specification, allowing users to specify custom formatting functions and plug in their own implementations.

MessageFormat 2 builds on top of the experience from using and maintaining ICU MessageFormat and a number of other localization systems and workflows. It improves the placeholder syntax, improves escaping rules inside the translatable content, replaces nested selectors with top-level multiple selectors, and allows the use of custom formatters.

For example:

match {$photoCount :number} {$userGender :equals}
when 1 masculine {{$userName} added a new photo to his album.}
when 1 feminine {{$userName} added a new photo to her album.}
when 1 * {{$userName} added a new photo to their album.}
when * masculine {{$userName} added {$photoCount} photos to his album.}
when * feminine {{$userName} added {$photoCount} photos to her album.}
when * * {{$userName} added {$photoCount} photos to their album.}

More examples and the formal definition of the grammar can be found in the specification draft.

We invite you all to try the Tech Preview available now in ICU4J and provide us any and all feedback. Similarly, please note that the MessageFormat 2 is still a work in progress, and therefore we rely on your questions, suggestions, and issues to critically inform how we iterate on the specification. Real world experience will allow us to address potential shortcomings in the ways that MessageFormat 2 will get used in practice.

For information about using the Tech Preview, refer to the API docs, ICU 72 download page, and the ICU4J User Guide.

To leave feedback about MessageFormat 2 (specification, syntax, etc.) or the Tech Preview implementation, please visit the working group’s repository at github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg, where you can open a new Discussion topic or file a new Issue.

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Over 144,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages