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Re: [Ltru] I'm really confused by chinese in 3066bis



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

>> Why don't we just use the strategy we already have: if at least one 
>> language subtag "yyy" exists with a Macrolanguage field of "xxx", 
>> then "xxx" is a macrolanguage.
>
> Why would that be any better?

Because it's what we already do?  Also see a longer explanation in the 
reply to Debbie.

>> This is a bit more work for us programmer types, since it means we 
>> have to look through 7,768 language subtags, but that's our problem; 
>> everyone else can just use the Registry-searching engines we build.
>
> If BCP47 list doesn't list it, then one can always create alternative 
> lists ...

BCP 47 would indeed list it, just under the encompassed languages and 
not under the macrolanguages themselves.  If you look for "Arabic" and 
find "Macrolanguage: True", you're going to have to search through the 
whole Registry anyway to find what it's a macrolanguage of.

> Programmer types can develope search tools anyhow. Programmer types 
> outside IETF needs hooks and help as well, for developing their own 
> tools. (Just look at Apache ...)

Are the descriptions of the Macrolanguage field in 4646bis really not 
adequate for this?

> Many will just look for Arab, and settle when they find "ar". If the 
> goal is to get users to always use as spesific tags as 
> needed/possible, then this is not good enough. If the field 
> Macrolanguage answers "true", then at least there exist a insentive to 
> try to understand what that as is.

With 7,700 language subtags to choose from, simply stopping when you 
find the word "Arabic" is not going to be sufficient anyway.

> Mentioning that it is a macrolanguage is neutral info. 
> Developers/Users must then find out what to do with it - if it can be 
> used for fallback, or whatever.

Agreed.  What I'm saying is that we already provide this information in 
the draft-4645bis Registry, and document it in draft-4646bis, sections 
3.1.9 and 4.1.  I'm not convinced that this needs to be changed.

--
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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