Inconsistent capitalization of name_local in django.conf.locale.LANG_INFO

[Claude Paroz]

I think that name_local in LANG_INFO should be either globally capitalized or not (in languages where that makes sense).

Currently, there is "Français" and "español", by instance.

[Julien Phalip]

I'm not sure how inconsistent Django's i18n data currently is, but globally capitalising everything would not necessarily be a welcome change. For example, demonyms are capitalised in English but not in French (see at the bottom of the "Adjectives" section in ​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization

So, "Français" should in fact be "français".

[Ramiro Morales]

Claude: What are the use cases/reasons why you think "name_local in LANG_INFO should be either globally capitalized or not".

What Julien says is correct, e.g. in spanish language names aren't capitalized ("español", "inglés", "francés").

Maybe it doesn't look nice in a select form control, or it affects sorting of the options in such an UI element? Can we provide some helper or suggestion in the docs for users that wish to solve these hypothetical problems?

[Claude Paroz]

Replying to ramiro:

Claude: What are the use cases/reasons why you think "name_local in LANG_INFO should be either globally capitalized or not".

Consistency, mainly. When you present a list/menu with native names, it's not very nice to see : 'Basque, 'eesti', 'English', 'español', ...

What Julien says is correct, e.g. in spanish language names aren't capitalized ("español", "inglés", "francés").

Same for French. But if the language name is alone in a menu, it may be capitalized.

Maybe it doesn't look nice in a select form control, or it affects sorting of the options in such an UI element? Can we provide some helper or suggestion in the docs for users that wish to solve these hypothetical problems?

Is there currently a rule for name_local capitalization? I think it should be clarified at least in the file itself.
For example, "Capitalize name_local only if your language name should always appear capitalized in your language, even in the middle of a sentence" (if that is the rule of course).

[waldeinburg]

If you make consistency, the filter language_name_local will be useless when the use case is, e.g., putting the current language inside a sentence on a multilingual site; it would create spelling errors in, e.g., Spanish as you mention. It makes little sense, IMHO, to use the local name outside the language itself, except in lists where you can use the capfirst filter to capitalize.

[Claude Paroz]

Granted.

What about this note in the file:

# About name_local: capitalize it as if your language name was appearing
# inside a sentence

[Claude Paroz <claude@…>]

In 5dc4437dfad8241a5830e4d2ab59635b814281d6:

Fixed #15714 -- Added note about capitalization of LANG_INFO name_local

[Claude Paroz <claude@…>]

In 5229ac20bedea017bfd29e6cb03916715c09cc7f:

[1.5.x] Fixed #15714 -- Added note about capitalization of LANG_INFO name_local

Backport of 5dc4437df from master.