Re: [Ltru] extlang or not extlang

["Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon.com>]

> I'm someone who needs these
> distinctions so I guess I find the continued existence of the "zh" tag
> to be more of a problem than the introduction of the more specific tagging
> I need.

So I'm trying to wrap my head around a suitable resolution that addresses the various needs expressed on this list. I tend to agree that you need specific tagging for stuff like written Cantonese and spoken Mandarin, etc. Historical use of vague tags, ascribing meaning not actually in the subtags, is not helpful.

How do you think this would best be solved? If I understand your previous messages, you'd prefer to see:

- Restore 'extlang'
- Require the extlang subtag to be used (via the SHOULD keyword??)
- Clarify that 'zh' means "any kind of Chinese" and thus isn't specifically one sort or another: specificity is desirable.

Or would you prefer:

- Not restore 'extlang'
- Possibly deprecate 'zh' (with no preferred-value)
- Clarify that users SHOULD use the specific flavor of Chinese, with additional subtags as appropriate
- Clarify that 'zh' means "any kind of Chinese" and thus isn't specifically one sort or another

Or, finally:

- Restore 'extlang'
- Allow the encompassed languages to be both extlangs and primary subtags
- Clarify that 'zh' means "any kind of Chinese" and thus isn't specifically one sort or another: specificity is desirable.
- Provide guidelines for choosing between 'zh-???" and "???" forms.

Best Regards,

Addison

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ltru-bounces at ietf.org [mailto:ltru-bounces at ietf.org] On Behalf Of
> Karen_Broome at spe.sony.com
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 2:58 PM
> To: Doug Ewell
> Cc: LTRU Working Group
> Subject: Re: [Ltru] extlang or not extlang
>
> Doug wrote:
>
> > In the flood of messages on this topic, I can't find the statement in
> > the archives that 'cmn' should be deprecated.  I hope to heaven that
> is
> > a misquote.
>
> (For the record, this was the message I was referring to...)
>
> Mark Davis wrote:
>
> Not so sure that we will get accuracy; frankly I think the introduction
> of
> cmn, arb, etc. were well intentioned, but in retrospect a mistake.
> There
> was no reason not to treat zh, ar, etc just like we treated de. There
> is
> no substantive difference between zh:yue and de:gsw.
>
> Given the existence and long usage of zh in IT, the introduction of cmn
> (etc) will inevitably just end up with mistagged data, mishandled
> lookups,
> and unsatisfied users, unless one follows the strategy that unless you
> have a strong reason not to, treat cmn as a synonym for zh. (In fact,
> it
> is simplest to remap cmn-* to zh-* on input.)
>
> [Our best course of action for compatibility and interoperability would
> be
> to deprecate cmn, arb, and the few others in that section, but I doubt
> that we could get consensus on that, so I'd never brought it up.]
>
> Karen writes:
>
> Above is the text I was referencing. Though Mark hasn't suggested that
> we
> actually do this, the fact that he thinks this would be helpful tells
> me
> that we're looking at this very differently. I'm someone who needs
> these
> distinctions so I guess I find the continued existence of the "zh" tag
> to
> be more of a problem than the introduction of the more specific tagging
> I
> need.
>
>
>
>
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