Subject: Re: [Ltru] Extlang issues

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 16:10:26 -0600

Leif Halvard Silli <lhs at malform dot no> wrote:

> 3. and authors tend to think that the tags should work in a
> hierarchical way, meaning that they find 'no-nn' and 'no-nb' more
> natural than 'nn-NO' and 'nb-NO'. The official goverment web site of
> Norway currently has this error, except that instead of nn they write
> ny: 'no-NY', and they - as well - use 'no' for Bokm?l. See
> http://www.regjeringa.no ;

Just to respond to one important misconception that flows throughout
this message:

Two-letter language subtags derived from ISO 639-1, such as "no" and
"nb" and "nn", could not ever have been extlangs, since they would have
been confusable with two-letter region subtags.  (As it turns out, only
"NO" is currently a region subtag, not "NB" or "NN" or even "NY", but
that could change at any time.)  Uppercase vs. lowercase does not matter 
for differentiating subtags.

For this reason and others, no existing language subtags would have been
convertible to extlangs.

> 1. there is a tendency to use 'no' as a tag for the hegemony language
> (Bokm?l). Last version of Apache, Apache 2.2.8 is set up like this
> exacalty this way - with .no for 'no' and .nn for 'nn'. This steals
> playground from the minority language. (But also the opposite can
> happen: a friend just discovered that on Mac OS X, Safari only asks
> for 'nb-NO' ...);

This is a perfectly valid tag, "Norwegian Bokmål as used in Norway,"
though the "Norway" qualifier might not be necessary.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Arvada, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

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---

From: Leif Halvard Silli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2008 00:48:28 +0200

> for differentiating subtags.

This is not a fair portrayal of what I said. Or perhaps you just read my 
letter asssuming it was full of misunderstandings.

On this list I have first and foremost spoken about no-nno and no-nob. 
The above example only serves to show that there is a tendency to think 
hierarchical about these things. A fact that I think support the 
introduction of no-nno and no-nob (and also does it support the 
grandfathered no-nyn and no-bok).

> though the "Norway" qualifier might not be necessary.

You apparently did not grasp what I meant. Only asking for 'nb-NO' means 
that Safari only asks for the hegemonial form of Norwegian, Bokmål. 
Which again means that Safari will not receive files tagged with 'no'. 
Thus not only the minority language users suffers. But also the majority 
langauge users.
-- 
leif halvard silli

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 10:54:51 -0600

Leif Halvard Silli <lhs at malform dot no> wrote:

> The above example only serves to show that there is a tendency to 
> think hierarchical about these things. A fact that I think support the 

I apologize if you were offended by my response.  In your original post, 
you did have statements like "provided 'no-nb' and 'no-nn' could be 
used," and I was simply trying to point out that these two-letter 
extlangs could *not* have been used, for syntactical reasons.

If your point was to express support for three-letter extlangs, as in 
"no-nno" and "no-nob", then this would have been syntactically possible; 
but these two particular examples would have destabilized the existing 
tags "nn" and "nb", and so it was decided not to do this either, even if 
we had gone ahead with the extlang mechanism.

> You apparently did not grasp what I meant. Only asking for 'nb-NO' 
> means that Safari only asks for the hegemonial form of Norwegian, 
> Bokmål. Which again means that Safari will not receive files tagged 
> with 'no'. Thus not only the minority language users suffers. But also 
> the majority langauge users.

I do understand that any language tag starting with 'nb' specifically 
does not include Nynorsk (and vice versa for 'nn' and Bokmål).  I often 
wish ISO 639-1 had not added the individual code elements 'nb' and 'nn' 
, treating these two variants as though they were completely different 
languages, while also retaining the umbrella code element 'no'.  But 
they did, and people have been using all three in language tags, and 
there is not much we can do now to change that.

I was one of the strong supporters of the hierarchical extlang 
mechanism, and argued in favor of keeping it when list members began 
talking about removing it from the draft.  I agree with much of what you 
are saying, though for compatibility reasons we could not have employed 
extlangs to get out of the Norwegian mess.  But the decision has been 
made, and as you observed in your first post, unfortunately you are a 
bit late to the party.

---

From: Leif Halvard Silli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2008 22:26:36 +0200

Doug Ewell 2008-05-04 18.54:
>> On this list I have first and foremost spoken about no-nno and 
>> no-nob. The above example only serves to show that there is a 
>> tendency to think hierarchical about these things. A fact that I 
>> think support the introduction of no-nno and no-nob (and also does it 
>> support the grandfathered no-nyn and no-bok).
>
> I apologize if you were offended by my response.  In your original 
> post, you did have statements like "provided 'no-nb' and 'no-nn' could 
> be used," and I was simply trying to point out that these two-letter 

I may not have been 100% clear, and also had the door open to what you 
say, I admit that.

> "no-nno" and "no-nob", then this would have been syntactically 
> possible; but these two particular examples would have destabilized 
> the existing tags "nn" and "nb", and so it was decided not to do this 
> either, even if we had gone ahead with the extlang mechanism.

I can imagine that it could become problematic to introduce no-nno and 
no-nob, yes. I think actually used those codes, would have had to be put 
on hold until browsers actually supported them. But it would have been 
interesting to know what spesific destabilizing problems you and others 
might have had in mind.

>> with 'no'. Thus not only the minority language users suffers. But 
>> also the majority langauge users.
>
> does not include Nynorsk (and vice versa for 'nn' and Bokmål).  I 
> often wish ISO 639-1 had not added the individual code elements 'nb' 
> and 'nn' , treating these two variants as though they were completely 
> different languages, while also retaining the umbrella code element 
> 'no'.  But they did, and people have been using all three in language 
> tags, and there is not much we can do now to change that.

Interesting to hear you say this.

> talking about removing it from the draft.  I agree with much of what 
> you are saying, though for compatibility reasons we could not have 
> employed extlangs to get out of the Norwegian mess.  But the decision 
> has been made, and as you observed in your first post, unfortunately 
> you are a bit late to the party.

Unfortunatly, yes.

The extlang tags could also have "sent a message" about an important 
problem. And the "energy" from that could be used to also solve the 
problem for those langauges where it was resolved thatit would not be 
possible to use that mechanism.
-- 
Leif Halvard Silli
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---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 16:26:13 -0600

Leif Halvard Silli <lhs at malform dot no> wrote:

> no-nob, yes. I think actually used those codes, would have had to be 
> put on hold until browsers actually supported them. But it would have 
> been interesting to know what spesific destabilizing problems you and 
> others might have had in mind.

Adding new aliases for existing tagging options, such as "no-nno" and 
"no-nob" where we already have "nn" and "nb", can cause stability 
problems because matching engines will not know to match "no-nno" with 
"nn", or "no-nob" with "nb", and also because users may become confused 
over the choices and use invalid or ill-formed tags like "no-nn" or 
"nno".

>> ... I often wish ISO 639-1 had not added the individual code elements 
>> 'nb' and 'nn' , treating these two variants as though they were 
>> completely different languages, while also retaining the umbrella 
>> code element 'no'.  But they did, and people have been using all 
>> three in language tags, and there is not much we can do now to change 
>> that.
>

It's considered a bad idea to make changes that invalidate existing 
usage, or otherwise force users to retag content that has already been 
tagged.

> possible to use that mechanism.

I don't think I follow this.  Our goal is to provide language tagging 
options that balance flexibility, interoperability, and stability, not 
to "send a message" to users or ISO maintenance authorities.  Sometimes 
we send a message explicitly, such as helping to persuade ISO 3166/MA to 
wait 50 years instead of 5 before recycling old code elements, but in 
general we try not to use BCP 47 or the Registry for any sort of 
activism.

---

From: Leif Halvard Silli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 01:23:17 +0200

> to "send a message" to users or ISO maintenance authorities.  
> Sometimes we send a message explicitly, such as helping to persuade 
> ISO 3166/MA to wait 50 years instead of 5 before recycling old code 
> elements, but in general we try not to use BCP 47 or the Registry for 
> any sort of activism.

If you put it that way, then I must agree with you.
-- 
leif halvard silli
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