Information Hub for Linguists

Starting Submission

During Submission, please read the CLDR Training (if new to the survey tool), please focus on the missing, provisional, and errors. Please read the Updates. For more information about the priorities during Submission, see Survey Tool stages.

Prerequisites

  1. If you’re new to CLDR, take the CLDR training below.
  2. If you’re already experienced with CLDR, read the Critical reminders section (mandatory).
  3. Review the Status and Schedule, New Areas, Survey Tool, and Known Issues.
  4. Once you are ready, go to the Survey Tool and log in.

Updates

When a section below changes, the date will be in the header.

Status and Schedule

The Survey Tool is currently being prepared to open for CLDR 48 General Submission in April 2025. The General Submission phase will be followed by the Vetting phase.

New Areas

Most of the following are relevant to locales at the Modern Coverage Level.

New emoji

TBD - New emoji will be added the week of April 21st.

Locale display names

More language names

As new locales reach Basic Coverage, their language names have been added for locales targeting modern coverage: TBD

Languages whose English name changed

Scripts

There are 5 new scripts for Unicode 17. Currently the names are in English: Beria Erfe, Chisoi, Sidetic, Tai Yo, Tolong Siki. Coverage for other languages is at comprehensive; if there is a need to have coverage at lower level in some locale, please file a ticket. CLDR-18283

ISO 8601 calendar name

This is a variant of the Gregorian calendar whose formats always use year-month-day ordering and a 24-hour time cycle. The English name has changed to reflect that (and also added a variant); locales should update accordingly: -calendar-iso8601: Gregorian (Year First) -calendar-iso8601-variant: ISO 8601 Order

CLDR-18447

DateTime formats

New “relative” variant for date-time combining pattern

There is a new “-relative” variant for Date-Time Combined Formats. CLDR-18350

Before CLDR 48, there were two variants:

However, in some languages the use of a relative date such as “tomorrow” or “2 days ago” required a different combining pattern than for a fixed date like “March 20”. So in CLDR 48 a new “relative” variant is introduced. This will be used (instead of the “atTime” variant) for the combination of a relative date and a single time. If you do not supply this, that combination will fall back to using the “standard” variant; in English that would produce “tomorrow, 3:00 PM”. If instead you want the same combining behavior for a relative date with a single time as for a fvfixed date with single time (as was the case in CLDR 47 and earlier), then for each length style copy the existing “atTime” form to the new “relative” form.

Timezones, metazones and exemplar cities

New gmtUnknownFormat

Normally time zones formatted using UTC offset (like xxxx) use the gmtFormat pattern (“GMT{0}” in root). The new gmtUnknownFormat is used when formatting time zones using a UTC offset for cases when the offset or zone is unknown. The root value “GMT+?” need not be changed if it works for your locale; hoever it should be consistent with the gmtFormat and gmtZeroFormat in your locale. See Time Zones and City names CLDR-18236

“Unknown City” → “Unknown Location”

For zone Etc/Unknown, the exemplarCity name was changed in English from “Unknown City” to “Unknown Location”; other locales should update accordingly. CLDR-18262

Changes to the root and/or English names of many exemplar cities and some metazones

(TBD CLDR-18249

Number formats

Currency patterns alphaNextToNumber, noCurrency

There actually added in CLDR 42 per (CLDR-14336)[https://unicode-org.atlassian.net/browse/CLDR-14336]. However, they were not properly set up for coverage and inheritance, and were not presented to many vetters. These issue were corrected in CLDR 47 per CLDR-17879, which adjusted the data for some locales (and made it draft=”provisional”). Many vetters will see these for the first time in CLDR 48.

For more information see Number and currency patterns.

Rational formats

These describe the formatting of rational fractions such as ¾ or combinations of integers and fractions such as 5½. CLDR-17570

Here are the the English values and a short description of their purpose; for more information see (TBD):

Units

Rework certain concentration units

The keys for two units changed (the translations can probably remain the same) and there is one new unit that is used for constructing certain other kinds of concentration units. CLDR-18274:

Many new units in English

Mnny new units were added in English. In general these are very specific and vetters will not be asked to translate them for other locales, so coverage will be comprehensive. If some of these units would be useful in particualr locales, please file a ticekt and the coverage can be adjusted. CLDR-18215

The units (English names) are:

Survey Tool

Once trained and up to speed on Critical reminders (below), log in to the Survey Tool to begin your work.

Survey Tool Changes

  1. The ability to search in the Survey Tool has been added in CLDR-18423 and supports searching for: values, English value, and for the codes
  2. There has been substantial performance work that will show up for the first time. If there are performance issues, please file a ticket with a row URL and an explanation for what happened.
  3. In the Dashboard, you can filter the messages instead of jumping to the first one. In the Dashboard header, each notification category (such as “Missing” or “Abstained”) has a checkbox determining whether it is shown or hidden.
  4. In each row of the vetting page, there is now a visible icon when there are forum messages at the right side of the English column:
    1. 👁️‍🗨️ if there are any open posts
    2. 💬 if there are posts, but all are closed
  5. For Units and a few other sections, the Pages have changed to reduce the size on the page to improve performance.
    1. Pages may be split, and/or retitled
    2. Rows may move to a different page.
  6. In the Dashboard, the Abstains items will now only have one entry per page. You can use that entry to go to its page, and then fix Abstains on that page. Once you are done on that page, hit the Dashboard refresh button (↺). This fixes a performance problem for people with a large number of Abstains, and reduces clutter in the Dashboard.
  7. The symbols in the A column have been changed to be searchable in browsers (with Find in Page) and stand out more on the page. See below for a table. They override the symbols in Survey Tool Guide: Icons.

Important Notes

New Approve Status Icons

Symbol Status Notes
✅ Approved Enough votes for use in implementations …
☑️ Contributed Enough votes for use in implementations …
✖️ Provisional Not enough votes for implementations …
❌ Unconfirmed Not enough votes for implementations …
🕳️ Missing Completely missing
⬆️ Inherited Used in combination with ✖️ and ❌

Known Issues

Last updated: 2025-04-07

This list will be updated as fixes are made available in Survey Tool Production. If you find a problem, please file a ticket, but please review this list first to avoid creating duplicate tickets.

  1. Images for the plain symbols. Non-emoji such as €, √, », ¹, §, … do not have images in the Info Panel. CLDR-13477 Workaround: Look at the Code column; unlike the new emoji, your browser should display them there.
  2. CLDR-17683 - Some items are not able to be flagged for TC review. This is being investigated.Meanwhile, Please enter forum posts meanwhile with any comments.

Resolved Issues

Last updated: 2025-04-07

  1. CLDR-17694 - Back button in browser fails in forum under certain conditions
  2. CLDR-17658 - Dashboard slowness

Recent Changes

  1. CLDR-17658 - In the Dashboard, the Abstains items will only have one entry per page. You can use that entry to go to its page, and then fix Abstains on that page. Once you are done on that page, hit the Dashboard refresh button (↺). This fixes a performance problem for people with a large number of Abstains, and reduces clutter in the Dashboard.

CLDR training (for new linguists)

Before getting started to contribute data in CLDR, and jumping in to using the Survey Tool, it is important that you understand the CLDR process & take the CLDR training. It takes about 2-3 hours to complete the training.

  1. Understand the basics about the CLDR process read the Survey Tool Guide and an overview of the Survey Tool Stages.
    • New: A video is available which shows how to login and begin contributing data for your locale.
  2. Read the Getting Started topics on the Information Hub:

*If you (individual or your organization) have not established a connection with the CLDR technical committee, start with Survey Tool Accounts.

Critical reminders (for all linguists)

You’re already familiar with the CLDR process, but do keep the following in mind:

  1. Aim at commonly used language - CLDR should reflect common-usage standards not academic /official standards (unless commonly followed). Keep that perspective in mind.
  2. Carefully consider changes to existing standards - any change to an existing CLDR standard should be carefully considered and discussed with your fellow linguists in the CLDR Forum. Remember your change will be reflected across thousands of online products!
  3. Keep consistency across logical groups - ensure that all related entries are consistent. If you change the name of a weekday, make sure it’s reflected across all related items. Check that the order of month and day are consistent in all the date formats, etc.
    • Tip: The Reports are a great way to validate consistency across related logical groups, e.g. translations of date formats. Use them to proofread your work for consistency.
  4. Avoid voting for English - for items that do not work in your language, don’t simply use English. Find a solution that works for your language. For example, if your language doesn’t have a concept of calendar “quarters”, use a translation that describes the concept “three-month period” rather than “quarter-of-a-year”.
  5. Watch out for complex sections and read the instructions carefully if in doubt:
    1. Date & Time
    2. Time zones
    3. Plural forms

Tip: The links in the Info Panel will point you to relevant instructions for the entry you’re editing/vetting. Use it if in doubt.