Subject: RE: [Ltru] Re: Preparations for smart matching

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 00:18:12 -0800

> From: Debbie Garside [mailto:[email-masked]]

> > If by "Character_Set" you are suggesting that language tags should
> include
> >a "charset" component to indicate the character set encoding used for
the
> >data, then I think that would not be a good idea: that's not an
attribute
> >related to the linguistic content; it's an attribute of the digital
> >representation. The two should really be kept separate.
> 
> My remark was a little "tongue in cheek" and in relation to my "detail
> remark" as I am unsure of the use of script codes as they seem so
broad...

Ah! It's true, they are pretty broad, and that can be an issue. For
instance, I've been wondering for a while what the best way would be to
tag e.g. English content written in a Latin-base phonetic transcription,
such as IPA (IPA uses a few Greek characters but otherwise is
predominantly Latin), or other Latin-based systems for phonetic
transcription. "Latn" could in principle encompass any of these. What
would really be ideal would be a handy set of IDs for writing systems,
which would not far from IDs for inventories of characters -- for
character sets.

Unfortunately, we don't have any obvious candidate for such a set of
IDs, nor is it obvious that creating a set of such IDs in any
comprehensive way would really be practical. 

Script IDs are practical, and if some flexibility is allowed for in
adding categories in the list of scripts, such as Hans and Hant, or Latf
and Latg, then that can go a long way toward our needs. It may not be
able to cover all cases of interest to users, though. (The recent
discussion of Greek on the other list explores the limits to which
script IDs can be stretched.)

Peter Constable

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---

From: "Debbie Garside" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 08:47:43 -0000

Peter Constable wrote:

>instance, I've been wondering for a while what the best way would be to tag
>e.g. English content written in a Latin-base phonetic transcription, such
>as IPA (IPA uses a few Greek characters but otherwise is predominantly
>Latin), or other Latin-based systems for phonetic transcription. "Latn"
>could in principle encompass any of these. What would really be ideal would
>be a handy set of IDs for writing systems, which would not far from IDs for
>inventories of characters -- for character sets.

>Unfortunately, we don't have any obvious candidate for such a set of IDs,
>nor is it obvious that creating a set of such IDs in any comprehensive way
>would really be practical. 

I agree...  but hopefully -6 will give the structure so that character sets,
at least, can be attached to language variants... should you so wish... 

>Script IDs are practical, and if some flexibility is allowed for in adding
>categories in the list of scripts, such as Hans and Hant, or Latf and Latg,
>then that can go a long way toward our needs. It may not be able to cover
>all cases of interest to users, though. (The recent discussion of Greek on
>the other list explores the limits to which script IDs can be stretched.)

Thank you for clarifying

Debbie

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Peter Constable
Sent: 23 March 2005 08:18
To: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [Ltru] Re: Preparations for smart matching

the
attribute
broad...

Peter Constable

---

From: "Debbie Garside" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 09:03:33 -0000

Debbie Garside wrote:

>I agree...  but hopefully -6 will give the structure so that character
>sets,at least, can be attached to language variants... should you so
>wish...

In fact, on reflection, it can be added as an object in the hierarchy of -6
with a hyperlink to the info... if required... although I am not sure I
personally have the time to develop this aspect... but it is conceivable

Debbie

Thank you for clarifying

Debbie

-----Original Message-----

the
attribute
broad...

Peter Constable

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 08:19:15 -0500

Peter Constable scripsit:

> transcription. "Latn" could in principle encompass any of these. 

I've pressed for "Ipaa" (or perhaps "Latp") in the past, to which
"Fupa" (or "Latu"?) should probably be added.

-- 
Said Agatha Christie / To E. Philips Oppenheim  John Cowan
"Who is this Hemingway? / Who is this Proust?   [email-masked]
Who is this Vladimir / Whatchamacallum,         http://www.reutershealth.com
This neopostrealist / Rabble?" she groused.     http://www.ccil.org/cowan
        --author unknown to me; any suggestions?

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:22:21 +0100

>script IDs can be stretched.)

Seems odd to read this. What is the target of this WG?
to conform to norms and to outdated practices, or to conform standards to 
users needs and to help transitionning the past?

Yesterday we had an interesting lunch discussion with among others a 
dictionary and a localization normalizers of different European cultures. 
We went into this proposition "15 years later you cannot republish a 
dictionary" vs. "a computer runs the 15 years old dictionary if its program 
release if 15 years old".

I proposed there are three classes of languages users to consider:
class 1. the lingua franca related mother's tongue people
class 2. the computers
class 3. the others.
and that their needs are orthogonal. This immediately seemed obvious to all 
of us and we discussed the similar situation of various Lingua Francae in 
Geography as well as History and even in business and human relations.

Class 1 is the majority of the members in here. Class 2 is only partly 
represented. Class 3 (while a substantial part of the mankind) is not very 
interested in IETF. There are various reasons explored in an RFC and in one 
or two complementary draft. But the real problem is the scalability of the 
technology. By essence the lingua franca's culture has vision, interests, 
priorities others do not understand (I speak with the experience of the 
former lingua francae - French and Latin). But it permits a simple, robust, 
ASCII Internet.

One of the priority of class 1 is to use their language to stabilize an 
environment where only one language can be used. Their richness is this 
cultural community and stabilization (with formal registered language tags 
for example), calling internationalization the external description of all 
what differs from their language. While others have diversity as their 
richness, with the added value of an occasional (degraded) use of the 
lingua franca, which help their quasi opposed way to conceive 
"internationalization" (what they have in common).

It would interesting to read the Bible back, about Babel. Forcing a single 
way to describe languages, in a way is to have a single language. Babel was 
not to create the mankind a problem: it was to free it. As long as class 1, 
2 and 3 needs are not equally considered and efficiently addressed, it is 
likely there will be no consensus to enter data into the core reference of 
the class 2 - what is the target of the discussed RFC proposal.

The target is not to make it work in ASCII RFC 3066 ter ABNFed langtags. 
The target is to make any system, in any format, in any language and 
culture and circumstance able to understand what is the language (version) 
of any given content. RFC 3066 only proposed a solution.
jfc