Subject: [Ltru] Re: Korean suppress script

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:23:06 -0700

Martin Hosken <martin underscore hosken at sil dot org> wrote:

> Somewhere buried in the threads you mentioned that ko has not been 
> given a suppress script because it is possible that some text may be 
> encoded as ko-Hang and some as something else which I presume to be a 
> combination of Hang+Hant (but there seems to be no script code for 
> that combination).

It's not a matter of "some text may be."  There are regular, systematic 
situations in which Korean is written partially in hanja.

> This raises the question as to when a language should have a suppress 
> script and when not. Given that *any* language may be written 
> using -fonipa, it can't be that a language only receives a suppress 
> script if it cannot be rendered in another script.

That misrepresents the situation with Korean.  Almost any language can 
potentially be written in a wide variety of scripts.  With Korean, it's 
a regular occurrence, not theory.

> In effect the suppress script says: for this language if no script is 
> specified then the script is the suppress script AND the suppressed 
> script should not appear in language tags for this language. The 
> upshot of which is that any script can be earmarked as being the 
> suppressed script for a language, it's just wise to use the most 
> common. In fact it's probably ideal that all languages have a 
> suppressed script unless there is strong reason not to have one so 
> that a raw lang only tag can be given meaning.

First, "raw" language tags without a script subtag certainly have 
meaning already.  Often it is not important to identify the script in 
the tag.  Sometimes the receiving process can see for itself by 
analyzing the characters.  Then, of course, there is non-written 
content.

Second, the purpose of Suppress-Script as I understand it is to show 
when a script subtag would *probably* be unnecessary for written text, 
because one can safely assume that the text is written in a particular 
script.  In the absence of other information:

* Written Dutch can be safely assumed to be written in the Latin script.
* Written Ukrainian can be safely assumed to be written in the Cyrillic 
script.
* Written Persian can be safely assumed to be written in the Arabic 
script.

The same is not true for Serbian, which is written in either Latin or 
Cyrillic, with neither holding such a majority that it can be safely 
assumed.  And it is not true for Korean, because the use of "pure" 
hangul with no hanja cannot be safely assumed.  Using the "most common" 
isn't enough.

> In the case of ko, I would suggest that it should have a suppressed 
> script of Hang and old text including Hant or using some other script 
> should be explicitly marked.

It's not a matter of "old text."  I read newspapers from 2006 that 
included hanja in their headlines.

If you would like to pursue this, you might try recreating my 
experiment: read some modern books and newspapers and talk to some 
native Korean speakers.  Maybe also wait for some other LTRU members to 
see if they agree with me about the intent of S-S.  My opinion is that 
S-S naturally lends itself to this sort of confusion -- different 
reasonable people coming up with different interpretations.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
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---

From: Marion Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:49:42 +0000

I understand clearly what Martin Hoskin writes below, but not at all  
Doug Ewell's response - are you saying that Korean cannot be written  
in IPA, Doug?!?
mg

On 27 Mar 2007, at 14:23, scríobh Doug Ewell:

> ... Given that *any* language may be written using -fonipa, it  
> can't be that a language only receives a suppress script if it  
> cannot be rendered in another script.
>>
>
> That misrepresents the situation with Korean...

- -
Marion Gunn * EGTeo (Estab.1991)
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn, Baile an
Bhóthair, Co. Átha Cliath, Éire.
* [email-masked] * [email-masked] *

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:07:25 -0400

> Doug Ewell's response - are you saying that Korean cannot be written  

Of course not.  He is saying that Korean like Serbian, and unlike
English and many other languages) is ROUTINELY written in different
scripts in different circumstances.  Any language may be *transcribed*
in IPA, but languages are not routinely written using it.

-- 
What asininity could I have uttered     John Cowan <[email-masked]>
that they applaud me thus?              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        --Phocion, Greek orator

---

From: Martin Hosken <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:38:17 +0700

Dear Doug,

>
> It's not a matter of "some text may be."  There are regular,
> systematic situations in which Korean is written partially in hanja.

I see a script code for hanja but I don't see one for the combination of
Hangul + Hanja, so how would korean partially written in hanga be
tagged? Would ko-Hani imply there is no Hangul in the text?

> potentially be written in a wide variety of scripts.  With Korean,
> it's a regular occurrence, not theory.

My misrepresentation was entirely unintended and I apologise if I gave
any offense by it.

Yours,
Martin

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:47:46 +0900

>in IPA, but languages are not routinely written using it.

The situation with Korean is actually quite a bit different from
Serbian. Serbian is written either in Cyrillic or in Latin; except
in very special circumstances, these are not mixed.

Korean is usually written in a mixture of Hangul and Hanja (Ideographs),
with the percentage of Hangul often reaching 100%. 100% Hanja is
rare in general texts, but quite often seen e.g. on business cards.
Almost anything inbetween the two extremes exists. That's why it's
so difficult to use simple script labels for Korean, or to define
a Suppress-Script value.

Regards,    Martin.

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:[email-masked]

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:43:23 -0700

Martin Hosken <martin underscore hosken at sil dot org> wrote:

> I see a script code for hanja but I don't see one for the combination 
> of Hangul + Hanja, so how would korean partially written in hanga be 

I think the presence of a script subtag implies that the text is 
overwhelmingly written in that script, not that there cannot be a single 
letter in another script.  One example that is sometimes cited involves 
a mathematician writing in English (or French or German or whatever) 
about the value π; the presence of a Greek letter in the text does not 
make it "not Latin."

You therefore bring up an interesting point involving the small but 
systematic use of hanja in Korean.  If a text is predominantly Hangul, 
but includes one or two hanja characters here and there -- in a 
headline, a personal name, an advertisement -- does that really make the 
text "not Hangul"?  For this, I have to ask the list for help.  Is such 
a text really mixed-script?

I concur that it might sometimes be desirable to write "ko-(Hang+Hani)" 
or something similar.  I have no idea how we would go about solving such 
a problem without causing much more breakage to existing parsers than 
anything else we have done to this point.  We cannot expect additional 
"combination codes" like Hrkt and Jpan to be added to ISO 15924.

>> That misrepresents the situation with Korean.
>

No offense taken.

---

From: Martin Hosken <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:00:12 +0700

Dear Doug,
> headline, a personal name, an advertisement -- does that really make
> the text "not Hangul"?  For this, I have to ask the list for help.  Is
> such a text really mixed-script?

Sounds like an orthography variant to me. How about registering an
orthography variant for ko that says: contains hanja? Since even for
texts with hanja in them, they are basically Hangul with some
interesting spellings of words (using hanja).

Of course this means that the script for all Korean text (well basically
all) is going to be -Hang and so we are open to a suppress script again
:) All very circular. And then one just adds the orthography variant if
one wants to mark that it contains hanja.

At least, with no other input, that's what I would do.

Yours,
Martin

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:02:20 -0400

Doug Ewell scripsit:

> We cannot expect additional 

I have just requested the assignment of Hnhg for exactly that purpose.

-- 
John Cowan                              <[email-masked]>
            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
                .e'osai ko sarji la lojban.
                Please support Lojban!          http://www.lojban.org

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:28:35 -0700

John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:

>> We cannot expect additional "combination codes" like Hrkt and Jpan to 
>> be added to ISO 15924.
>

If this code element is added, resulting in a new script subtag, then I 
would expect it to become the Suppress-Script for "ko", and I would 
further expect "ko-Hang" to be interpreted as "Korean in virtually pure 
Hangul, with almost no trace of Han," the way it is written in the DPRK.

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:31:05 -0400

> Hangul, with almost no trace of Han," the way it is written in the DPRK.

It's precisely because practice differs in the North and the South
that I'd be very much against any Suppress-Script at all.

-- 
Deshil Holles eamus.  Deshil Holles eamus.  Deshil Holles eamus.
Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening, and wombfruit. (3x)
Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa!  Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa!  Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa!
  -- Joyce, Ulysses, "Oxen of the Sun"       [email-masked]

---

From: Marion Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:11:08 +0000

Thanks for your patience in explaining that, Martin - with LTRU msgs  
often running at a volume of 24 msgs or more in the space of 24 hrs,  
keeping abreast of any one thread can be so time-consuming that I can  
well understand those who just stop trying!
mg

On 28 Mar 2007, at 03:47, scríobh  Martin Duerst:

> ...

- -

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:10:51 +0900

>that I'd be very much against any Suppress-Script at all.

I'm very sure that practice differs between North and South. But
I have been given reliable reports that Hanja were to some extent
used in certain circumstances (/at certain times) in the North,
and on the other hand, there are widely disseminated publications
in the South that use Hangul only, so it's not as simple as
North -> Hangul only; South -> including Hanja.

Regards,    Martin.