Subject: Re: [Slim] Proposed SLIM charter

From: Chris Newman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2015 11:09:27 -0800

I support the creation of this WG. The charter text is fine.

		- Chris

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2015 10:24:21 -0700

Gunnar Hellström <gunnar dot hellstrom at omnitor dot se> wrote:

> I expect that in many cases it is merely the modality that is of
> interest to negotiate, rather than the exact language. There is often
> a default language in a specific area, and as long as you use that,
> you will feel that it is a burden to specify that exactly, but rather
> indicate in what medium you want the language exchange. You may want
> to use text for language exchange and audio to convey the sound from a
> location.
> So, you would like to specify your preference for spoken, listened,
> written, read, visualized and seen.  And for signed and perceiving
> sign languages. Regardless of exact language.
> So, some codes to use in place of specific languages for these kinds
> of general modalities could be needed.
>
> [...]
>
> How do we express that these might be alternatives for
> carrying the same written language?
> That question also surfaces the problem that in the language register
> there are no good way to express if it is a spoken use of the language
> or a written use of the language we want to specify. There are
> separate language tags for sign languages but not for spoken varsus
> written.

One of the goals I hope to accomplish in this project is to encourage
proper use of BCP 47 (RFC 5646), and dispel some myths about what
problems BCP 47 is and is not able to handle.

There are a few ways this project could represent spoken vs. written
language. One is to use private-use subtags: "de-x-spoken" and
"de-x-written" should be clear enough to everyone. When the actual
language is unspecified, but the mode is important, "und-x-spoken" and
"und-x-written" could be used.

Another approach would involve script subtags: "de-Latn" for written
German and "de-Zxxx" for spoken German, when (and only when) this
distinction is considered important. The draft would need to be clear
that this use of otherwise-redundant script subtags is meant to convey
spoken vs. written. Not everyone agrees that this is a good use of
script subtags, so more discussion is needed.

Alternatively, and perhaps more in keeping with Section 5 of the draft,
separate SLIM-specific fields such as Content-Mode could be invented.

I just want to stay away from the trap of intentionally restricting the
use of BCP 47, as Section 5 does by recommending only a primary language
subtag, and then asserting that BCP 47 is not expressive enough, and
additional mechanisms need to be introduced.

--
Doug Ewell | http://ewellic.org | Thornton, CO 🇺🇸 🕙

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From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 12:13:26 -0800

Hi Doug,

>  script subtags, so more discussion is needed.

Note that the media itself indicates the form: an 
audio media is used for spoken languages, text 
for written, and video for signed (which also 
have their own language tags).

>  additional mechanisms need to be introduced.

I agree.  It would be silly to restrict use of 
language tags and then complain that they are too 
restrictive.  The goal is to enable mutually 
comprehensible language, especially for emergency 
calls.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
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Those were my children being slaughtered.
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