Subject: [Ltru] Phonetic transcriptions: clearing the decks

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:09:31 -0500

It is now clear to me, from postings on ietf-languages and here, and from
reading ISO 19524, that neither a blanket script code element for phonetic
alphabets, nor individual script code elements for them, are going to be
allocated within the 19524 framework.

We now have three choices:

1) Use variant subtags and leave specific registration issues up to
ietf-languages (in some cases, stacked variant subtags may be useful).

2) Do an end-run around ISO 15924 by allowing a registration procedure
for script subtags using some syntax other than 4ALPHA, perhaps
1ALPHA + 3alphanum.

3) Do nothing.

I think #2 would be a serious mistake, and when I think about some of
the variants we now have, I no longer believe that #1 is truly problematic.

-- 
If you understand,                      John Cowan
   things are just as they are;         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
if you do not understand,               [email-masked]
   things are just as they are.

_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
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---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:24:47 -0800

You're giving up when we have only really begun to engage with the 15924
RA to discuss this?

"Make no little plans; they have no power to fire men's blood."  

;-) Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 1:10 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [Ltru] Phonetic transcriptions: clearing the decks

It is now clear to me, from postings on ietf-languages and here, and
from
reading ISO 19524, that neither a blanket script code element for
phonetic
alphabets, nor individual script code elements for them, are going to be
allocated within the 19524 framework.

3) Do nothing.

I think #2 would be a serious mistake, and when I think about some of
the variants we now have, I no longer believe that #1 is truly
problematic.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:32:53 +0100

> ietf-languages (in some cases, stacked variant subtags may be useful).

I'm not sure what stacked variant subtags are, is that something like
variant phonetic, prefix *-Latn,
variant ipa01,    prefix *-Latn-phonetic ?

No registered variant has a prefix starting with a wildcard at the
moment, and introducing that would be utter dubious.

[...]

> I think #2 would be a serious mistake

+1

> when I think about some of the variants we now have, I no longer
> believe that #1 is truly problematic.

Why are "stacked variant subtags" better than a proper extension,
something in the direction of p-ipa (instead of phonetic-ipa01) ?

We could even start that "p-" extension registry by a more creative
interpretation of the WG Charter.  Or as an individual submission.

Frank (not volunteering for anything related to p-issues)

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:39:53 -0500

> moment, and introducing that would be utter dubious.

True.  I was actually thinking about en-US-american-kandk vs. en-US-american-trasmith.

> interpretation of the WG Charter.  Or as an individual submission.

Yes, that is a fourth option.  I think phonetic transcription is not
orthogonal enough to justify the use of an extension, however.

-- 
At the end of the Metatarsal Age, the dinosaurs     John Cowan
abruptly vanished. The theory that a single         [email-masked]
catastrophic event may have been responsible        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
has been strengthened by the recent discovery of
a worldwide layer of whipped cream marking the
Creosote-Tutelary boundary.             --Science Made Stupid

---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:49:55 -0800

I was thinking you had in mind a variant subtag to capture all
(Latin-based) phonetic transcriptions just as Latp would have done; e.g.
something like 

en-latnphon-amtrsmth 
en-latnphon-amkandk

(An extension in conjuction with this, e.g.
en-latnphon-p-american-kandk, would be another possibility.) That would
allow implementations one subtag they could look for to filter out
phonetic transcriptions.

Evidently that isn't what you were thinking; but I continue to think
there's value in having one subtag to identify this general class of
content, so if we are left without any solution from 15924 then I'd
still suggest something like this.

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 1:40 PM
To: Frank Ellermann
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Ltru] Re: Phonetic transcriptions: clearing the decks

> moment, and introducing that would be utter dubious.

True.  I was actually thinking about en-US-american-kandk vs.
en-US-american-trasmith.

-- 
At the end of the Metatarsal Age, the dinosaurs     John Cowan
abruptly vanished. The theory that a single         [email-masked]
catastrophic event may have been responsible
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
has been strengthened by the recent discovery of
a worldwide layer of whipped cream marking the
Creosote-Tutelary boundary.             --Science Made Stupid

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:27:12 -0800

Number 2 is a non-starter for me. I think we have plenty of workarounds 
as it is. This case doesn't strike me as compelling enough to warrant one.

I note that #1 is a variation of #3: we do nothing, occasionally 
ietf-languages will be petitioned to approve (or not) various ugly 
sugtags for specialists interested in such things.

I note that elsewhere some have cited the possibility of an extension. 
Interestingly, I think this also falls under the rubric of #3, since it 
is an activity that we can encourage others to take up. I rather like 
the idea of "banishing" transcriptions (phonetic or otherwise) to an 
extension.

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:41:46 -0800

Hi -

As a technical contributor...

> From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 1:49 PM
> Subject: RE: [Ltru] Re: Phonetic transcriptions: clearing the decks
>

I think a solution like this would be fairly good, especially
if it appears the the resistance to registering a script code
may be insurmountable.  However, for the languages that lack
Supress-Script, would anything unexpected happen?

Beyond that, a few hypothetical test cases to consider:
      Russian transcribed using IPA, further details unknown
      Latin-based transcription of Russian, but manifestly not IPA
      Mongolian transcribed using IPA
      Latin-based transcription of Mongolian, but not IPA
      Cyrillic transcription of Mongolian, but not "standard" orthography

With some of these, might the answer be "we don't need to be
able to distinguish these?"

> still suggest something like this.
...

"One" or "a very small number" would both work for me,
when I think back on the work I did with this sort of stuff.
For example, splitting things somewhat arbitrarily into
phonetic, phonemic, and "pragmatic" (or ad hoc)
transcriptions wouldn't have bothered me, nor would
breaking them into large families based on the nominal script.

Randy

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:46:42 -0800

Hi -

As co-chair...

> From: "Addison Phillips" <[email-masked]>
> To: "John Cowan" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 4:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [Ltru] Phonetic transcriptions: clearing the decks
...
...

Our WG charter says:
  The working group will examine, and if necessary clarify or adjust,
  procedures and guidelines with respect to extended language subtags
  and variant subtags. Use cases include the identification of
  signed languages, transliterations, and transcriptions.

I would hope we'd be able to give more useful /specific guidance
than just saying "use extensions".  Do you have some specific text
you'd like to propose?

Randy

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:46:55 -0800

> than just saying "use extensions".  Do you have some specific text

Uh... no. Or rather, I'm proposing we not have specific text in 4646bis. 
ietf-languages can accept or reject variants. Banning variants for 
transcriptions or transliterations outright might not be good policy. 
Deciding on this list that we won't specially encode transcriptions 
formally in 4646bis via some new or different procedure doesn't require 
a textual change to the document. That's what I'm proposing.

Addison

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:49:05 -0500

+1

-- 
Is a chair finely made tragic or comic? Is the          John Cowan
portrait of Mona Lisa good if I desire to see           [email-masked]
it? Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical,         http://ccil.org/~cowan
epical or dramatic?  If a man hacking in fury
at a block of wood make there an image of a cow,
is that image a work of art? If not, why not?               --Stephen Dedalus

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 12:27:10 -0800

Hi -

> To: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 11:46 AM
...
> a textual change to the document. That's what I'm proposing.

So, with respect to our charter's statement that:

As co-chair, I ask:
Are you suggesting that we request that the charter be updated to
exclude handling of transliterations and transcriptions, and that
we believe [email-masked] will "do the right thing"
using some unwritten framework to ensure that these are handled
in a coherent manner?

As a technical contributor, I say:
Given the past difficulty [email-masked] has had in handling
transcriptions and transliterations in a coherent manner, I strongly
believe that we can't just "punt" this issue.  We have several very
real examples to deal with, and the procedures in 4646bis should ensure
that
   1) those wishing to register a transliteration or transcription system
      have sufficient information to fill out a registration request
   2) the resulting registrations will provide subtags useful for matching

Simple cases we should be able to handle:

  - russian in unspecified latin-based transliteration
  - russian in unspecified latin-based phonetic transcription
  - russian in a specific latin-based transliteration (e.g., GOST 16876-71)
  - english in unspecified IPA (latin, if you will) phonetic transcription
  - english in unspecified IPA (latin, if you will) phonemic transcription
  - english in a specific latin-based phonemic transcription (e.g., trager-smith)

Randy

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 22:05:23 +0100

Randy Presuhn wrote:

>| The working group will examine, and if necessary clarify or adjust,
>| procedures and guidelines with respect to extended language subtags
>| and variant subtags. Use cases include the identification of
>| signed languages, transliterations, and transcriptions.

We've examined the issue to some degree, discussed various approaches
how to integrate it into the 4646 framework, and finally arrived at a
point where an extension-registry appears to be the or a part of the
solution.  John, Peter, you, and others just explore "or a part of"
wrt a script variant on the LSR list.

Maybe we could state that the existing rules like 3.7 are meant to be
used for cases including transliterations and transcriptions.  We've
already discussed to rule out any kind of "generic" variant, I still
think that's an excellent idea.

Frank

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:47:02 -0800

> using some unwritten framework to ensure that these are handled

No, not at all. Our charter asked us to consider these things. We have 
been and are considering them. I am proposing a specific solution. 
Sometimes not doing anything is a good solution to a problem.

>   - english in a specific latin-based phonemic transcription (e.g., trager-smith)

Well, I'd go a bit farther. Perhaps we should add text saying that 
language tags by themselves are not suitable for identifying 
transcriptions or other very specific language "modes" (note that there 
are auditory equivalents to transcription, for example).

It might be worthwhile to provide strongly language about the limits of 
language tags and their applicability. There is a limit to the 
expressiveness of any identifier system. Language tags are no exception. 
At a certain point, additional tag granularity begins to detract from 
the usefulness of the tags in general purpose systems. Specialized use 
(which may include transcriptions, etc.) may invite greater granularity. 
I think at some point it becomes useful to decide that the specialists 
SHOULD use an extension to prevent such narrow applications from 
interfering with user's (sometimes fragile) understanding of how to use 
and apply language tags in the most common cases.

Addison

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 20:29:24 -0800

Hi -

> From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 1:05 PM
> Subject: [Ltru] Re: Phonetic transcriptions: clearing the decks
...
> wrt a script variant on the LSR list.

I'm not convinced that an extension-registry is the right way to go.
In particular, if we *did* endorse that approach, we'd need to change
the matching stuff, since some of it would no longer be correct.
For example, this paragraph from 4647 would be incorrect if extensions
were used across the board for transliterations and transcriptions:

   When working with tags and ranges, note that extensions and most
   private-use subtags are orthogonal to language tag matching, in that
   they specify additional attributes of the text not related to the
   goals of most matching schemes.  Users SHOULD avoid using these
   subtags in language ranges, since they interfere with the selection
   of available content.  When used in language tags (as opposed to
   ranges), these subtags normally do not interfere with filtering
   (Section 3), since they appear at the end of the tag and will match
   all prefixes.  Lookup (Section 3.4) implementations are advised to
   ignore unrecognized private-use and extension subtags when performing
   language tag fallback.

> think that's an excellent idea.

I understand the reasoning behind the disdain for "generic" variants.
I think transcriptions and transliterations are quite different beasts
from what has been discussed as potential "generic" variants.

Randy