Milestone Schedule

Date Phase
2013-03-15 v23 Released
2013-09-18
 v24 Release

Unicode CLDR Project

Contents

  1. 1 News
  2. 2 What is CLDR?
  3. 3 Who uses CLDR?
  4. 4 How to Contribute?
  5. 5 How to Use?
  6. 6 Acknowledgments
  7. 7 Regular Semi-Annual Schedule

News

2013-05-15CLDR v23.1 Released
2013-04-30
CLDR v24 Open for Data Submission
2013-03-15
 CLDR v23 Released

What is CLDR?

The Unicode CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages, with the largest and most extensive standard repository of locale data available. This data is used by a wide spectrum of companies for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages for such common software tasks. It includes:
  • Locale-specific patterns for formatting and parsing: dates, times, timezones, numbers and currency values
  • Translations of names: languages, scripts, countries and regions, currencies, eras, months, weekdays, day periods, timezones, cities, and time units
  • Language & script information: characters used; plural cases; gender of lists; capitalization; rules for sorting & searching; writing direction; transliteration rules; rules for spelling out numbers; rules for segmenting text into graphemes, words, and sentences
  • Country information: language usage, currency information, calendar preference and week conventions, postal and telephone codes
  • Other: ISO & BCP 47 code support (cross mappings, etc.), keyboard layouts

CLDR uses the XML format provided by UTS #35: Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML). LDML is a format used not only for CLDR, but also for general interchange of locale data, such as in Microsoft's .NET.

For a set of slides on the technical contents of CLDR, see Overview.

Who uses CLDR?

Some of the companies and organizations that use CLDR are:
  • Apple (OS X & applications; iOS  for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch; Safari for Windows; Apple Mobile Device Support in iTunes for Windows; …)
  • Google (Web Search, Chrome, Android, Adwords, Google+, Google Maps, Blogger, Google Analytics, …)
  • IBM (DB2, Lotus, Websphere, Tivoli, Rational, AIX, i/OS, z/OS,…)
  • and many others, including:
    • ABAS Software, Adobe, Amazon (Kindle), Amdocs, Apache, Appian, Argonne National Laboratory, Avaya, BAE Systems Geospatial eXploitation Products, BEA, BluePhoenix Solutions, BMC Software, Boost, BroadJump, Business Objects, caris, CERN, Debian Linux, Dell, Eclipse, eBay, EMC Corporation, ESRI, Firebird RDBMS, Free BSD, Gentoo Linux, GroundWork Open Source, GTK+, Harman/Becker Automotive Systems GmbH, HP, Hyperion, Inktomi, Innodata Isogen, Informatica, Intel, Interlogics, IONA, IXOS, Jikes, Library of Congress, Mathworks, Mozilla, Netezza, OpenOffice, Oracle (Solaris, Java), Lawson Software, Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping LLC, Mandrake Linux, OCLC, Progress Software, Python, QNX, Rogue Wave, SAP, SIL, SPSS, Software AG, SuSE, Symantec, Teradata (NCR), ToolAware, Trend Micro, Virage, webMethods, Wine, WMS Gaming, XyEnterprise, Yahoo!
To suggest additions or corrections, please file a ticket.

How to Contribute?

CLDR is a collaborative project, which benefits by having people join and contribute. Anyone can submit data to CLDR, and contribute to making their language usable in a wide variety of products (see Who uses CLDR?). For information on how to set up an account and contribute data, see Survey Tool.

There is a process for resolving conflicting data that depends on voting strength. Members of the Unicode consortium get increased voting strength, from liaison members up to full members. Full members can also participate in the technical committee, which is the ultimate arbiter for the structure and content of CLDR. For information about joining the Unicode Consortium, see Unicode Consortium.

How to Use?

Most developers will use CLDR indirectly, via a set of software libraries, such as ICU, Closure, or TwitterCLDR. These libraries typically compile the CLDR data into a format that is compact and easy for the library to load and use.

For those interested in the source CLDR data, it is available for each release in the XML format specified by LDML. There are also tools that will convert to JSON and POSIX format. For more information, see CLDR Releases/Downloads.

Acknowledgments

Many people have made significant contributions to CLDR and LDML; see the Acknowledgments page for a full listing.

Regular Semi-Annual Schedule

CLDR has the following schedule:
    Q2-Q3 Phase
    Apr 15 Submission
    May 01 Submission
    Jun 01 Submission
    15 Vetting
    Jul 01 Resolution
    Aug 01 Production
    15 Final candidate tagged
    Sep 15 Release
    Q4-Q1 Phase
    Oct 15 Submission
    Nov 01 Submission
    Dec 01 Submission
    15 Vetting
    Jan 01 Resolution
    Feb 01 Production
    15  Final candidate tagged
    Mar 15 Release

    This provides for:
    1. A consistent release schedule each year so that implementations can plan forward.
    2. Two releases per year: end of Q1 and end of Q3.
    3. Making the survey tool open more of the year.
    The two important periods for translators are be:
    • Submission: translators are asked to flesh out missing data, and check for consistency.
    • Vetting: translators are asked to review all changed or conflicted values, and reach consensus.
    The actual dates may vary slightly from the plan for any given release.