|
If it is content in one
linguistic variety and crafted to serve two audiences deemed in 639-3 to be
distinct languages, then that strikes me as a potential macrolanguage scenario.
One key question is
how narrow a scope of content is needed and how much deliberate effort is
needed to craft something like that. For instance, a document consisting of “Papa!”
can serve many different audiences, but that is solely because the scope of
content is so constrained, and for that reason the bar is not met for a
macrolanguage. But if it’s easy for a content provider to come up with content
that serves both, then that’s interesting. Another key question
is why that content is functional for both audiences. Is it because it is expressed
in a variety that can really be considered common, or is it because it’s
actually in language A and 90% of speakers in language B are functionally
bilingual in A? Does the common-identify label reflect actual linguistic
commonality, or is it a logistic tool used in the repository to reflect merely
a dual tasking? Some thoughts.
Discuss it with the 639-3 RA. Peter From: ltru-bounces at ietf.org
[mailto:ltru-bounces at ietf.org] On Behalf Of Phillips, Addison HTML certainly allows
you to declare that some content is applicable to more than one language
audience. See: http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/#ri20040728.121358444 Otherwise, John
Cowan’s advice seems appropriate… ISO 639-3 or ISO 639-5 would be your next
stop. Note that macrolanguages are sometimes problematical, so you might also
consider a collection code instead. Addison Phillips Globalization Architect -- Lab126 Internationalization is not a feature. It is an architecture. From: ltru-bounces at ietf.org
[mailto:ltru-bounces at ietf.org] On Behalf Of Don Osborn In looking at the BBC website's offerings
in African languages, one notes that they have grouped Kinyarwanda and Kirundi
together under http://www.bbc.co.uk/greatlakes/
. This makes sense from a linguistic point of view since as I understand it,
the two languages are almost the same. When looking at the view (page) source,
one notes that they use lang="rw" (for Kinyarwanda). It may be that
the pages I checked are properly Kinyarwanda and an expert would know that they
are not Kirundi (rn), but it is in any event true that there is no code element
to cover both languages. I'm curious if there is any other
recommended way to handle such a situation where web content may be
deliberately and easily designed to cover more than one language as defined by
ISO 639 when there is not currently any macrolanguage code for them. Could one
for example define a whole page as having two languages? E.g., something like
lang="rw, rn"? Thanks in advance for any feedback. Don |
Note Well: Messages sent to this mailing list are the opinions of the senders and do not imply endorsement by the IETF.