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1---
2title: Secular/neutral eras
3---
4
5# Secular/neutral eras
6
7|   |   |
8|---|---|
9| Author | Peter Edberg |
10| Date | 2013-04-23,24 |
11| Status | Proposal |
12| Feedback to | pedberg (at) apple (dot) com |
13| Bugs | - [#649](http://unicode.org/cldr/trac/ticket/649) Write up PRI on secular forms of Eras (eg CE)<br /> - [#1574](http://unicode.org/cldr/trac/ticket/1574) Calendar-gregorian era : Add "CE" and "BCE" as additional alternate era terms<br /> - [#4656](http://unicode.org/cldr/trac/ticket/4656) Calendar-gregorian era : Add "CE" and "BCE" as additional alternate era terms  |
14
15Currently for gregorian we have the following in "root":
16
17```
18<eras>
19    <eraNames>
20        <alias source="locale" path="../eraAbbr"/>
21    </eraNames>
22    <eraAbbr>
23        <era type="0">BE</era>
24        <!-- = 544 BC gregorian. -->
25    </eraAbbr>
26    <eraNarrow>
27        <alias source="locale" path="../eraAbbr"/>
28    </eraNarrow>
29\</eras>
30```
31
32and we have the following in "en", for example:
33
34```
35<eras>
36    <eraNames>
37        <era type="0">Before Christ</era>
38        <era type="1">Anno Domini</era>
39    </eraNames>
40    <eraAbbr>
41        <era type="0">BC</era>
42        <era type="1">AD</era>
43    </eraAbbr>
44    <eraNarrow>
45        <era type="0">B</era>
46        <era type="1">A</era>
47    </eraNarrow>
48</eras>
49```
50
51We need a way that locales can provide data for an alternate secular/neutral era name if their default era name has a religious basis (as with the current en/gregorian/era naming).
52
53Since many locales already use a secular/neutral name as the default for gregorian, this would need to fall back to the default name in the same locale.
54
55The easiest way to do this is just provide \<eras alt="variant">l in locales that need it. A request for the "variant" form will fall back to the default form in the same locale if no "variant" form is present. So in "en" we would add this:
56
57```
58<eras alt="variant">
59    <eraNames>
60        <era type="0">Before Common Era</era>
61        <era type="1">Common Era</era>
62    </eraNames>
63    <eraAbbr>
64        <era type="0">BCE</era>
65        <era type="1">CE</era>
66    </eraAbbr>
67</eras>
68```
69
70(We could use other names for the alt form such as "secular" or "neutral" but "variant" is more general and already widely supported.)
71
72
73