Subject: [Ltru] Signed Languages.

From: r&d afrac <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 10:44:39 +0100

Peter Constable published the following comment on a non-WG  public 
list. Peter is an active partner in the IETF Globalization thinking, 
it is likely that this thinking will surface in this WG. Some members 
of this WG being on that list, they form outside of this WG a 
"consensus" which affects the current WG work. I regret this as it 
delays the conclusion of the filtering work and the publishing of RFC 3066 Bis.

May we once for all (read? and) respect the IETF WG-LTRU Charter? 
[email-masked] WAS for registering langtags. This list 
is to discuss how future langtag oriented format and subtags are to 
be registered and filtered. This is my main opposition to the 
affinity group: [email-masked] is _not_ where the IETF 
language policy is discussed and conducted.

This being said the sign mode case is an important example of the 
structural limitations of the RFC 3066 Bis and of the difficulties 
ahead for filtering. The proposed solution has its merits, but how 
the filtering mechanism is to know that "sgn-ase-esbaja" has some 
relation with "es-us"? I can only repeat my proposition that RFC 3066 
Bis is documented as conerning the written mode only.

This is the way I will formulate my Draft. Is there any technical 
objection to this position?

>I had an hour conversation today with an SIL linguist that has been 
>assisting teams working on sign language projects for a number of 
>years. We discussed various things, including the phenomenon of 
>"signed-spoken-lang-X" varieties.
>
>In thinking about how to construct tags for these languages, the 
>crucial question in my mind is this (using "signed English" in the 
>US as an example):
>
>Is signed English
>
>1) basically English expressed in a different modality,
>2) basically ASL with some kind of modification or qualification -- 
>e.g. a dialect or register, or
>3) a pidgin of English and ASL?
>
>Whichever it is, we should tag it accordingly (and if three, then 
>possibly code as though it were a distinct language).
>
>I was thinking we might use a subtag "-signed" based on the 
>assumption that (1) was applicable. I know understand that these 
>language varieties typically fall into (2), though perhaps sometimes 
>into (3); generally these are probably best thought of as registers 
>of the relevant signed language. They typically use phonology and 
>lexica from the sign language and impose elements of the syntax 
>(possibly including morphology) of the spoken language.
>
>Thus, here's my thoughts on a good approach to tagging signed languages:
>
>- We treat "sgn" as though it were a macrolanguage. (My contact said 
>that really wasn't that much of a stretch.)
>
>- We use ISO 639-3 IDs as extlang subtags together with a primary 
>subtag of "sgn"; e.g., "sgn-ase" for ASL. All signed languages (SLs 
>proper, not the Signed English cases) use tags constructed this way.
>
>- We generally treat varieties like Signed English as registers of 
>the signed language they are associated with. Thus, the tag is 
>formed by adding a variant subtag to the tag for the sign language. 
>Because there can be multiple varieties for a given sign 
>language/spoken language combination, registered variant subtags 
>provide the necessary level of flexibility. E.g. something like 
>"sgn-ase-enexact" "sng-ase-enexact2" for SEE and SEE2; and 
>"sgn-ase-esbaja" for the signed Spanish spoken in southern Baja 
>California (which is based on ASL).
>
>- For cases of signed-spoken-lang-X that are pidgins, we treat these 
>based on whatever general principles we adopt for pidgins. (I'm not 
>sure at the moment what that should be; the problem with pidgins is 
>that they are transitional and not yet stable -- they may stabilize 
>as a creole or they may continue to mutate or they may disappear.)
>
>
>This should give generally good results for matching algorithms. 
>Having "sgn" at the start immediately sets apart the modality, which 
>will generally trump any other distinction in importance to the 
>user. A request for "sgn-ase" will return results that include (the 
>hypothetical) "sgn-ase-enexact" and "sgn-ase-esbaja", which is 
>likely to be reasonable: an ASL speaker is going to recognize all or 
>nearly all of the lexical items in either case and so will have 
>about as much problem in comprehension as we'd expect from dialect 
>or register differences.
>
>This is a preliminary take. I'm know my understanding is still 
>limited, and that are likely to be several parts of what I've 
>outlined that need work and further discussion.
>
>
>
>
>Peter Constable

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---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 14:47:24 -0800

Hi -

The [email-masked] mailing list does not hold a monopoly on the discussion
of issues related to language tagging.  I don't care what other fora folks
use to discuss things, just as long as they don't represent their conclusions
as though they were ltru WG consensus.  What *does* matter is that if / when
discussion moves to the [email-masked] mailing list, there should be no 
presumption that the WG will reach the same conclusions as those external
discussions, and those participants should be prepared to replay their lines
of reasoning.  Furthermore, I have already invited that discussion to move
to this list.  If, for whatever reason, they find some other venue more
conducive to productive discussion, I won't interfere.

Randy, ltru co-chair

----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "r&d afrac" <[email-masked]>
> To: "LTRU Working Group" <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 1:44 AM
> Subject: [Ltru] Signed Languages.
>