[Ltru] Fallback vs. Macrolanguage? (was: John Cowan throws in...)

Addison Phillips <addison@yahoo-inc.com> Thu, 29 November 2007 16:30 UTC

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Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:30:34 -0800
From: Addison Phillips <addison@yahoo-inc.com>
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Subject: [Ltru] Fallback vs. Macrolanguage? (was: John Cowan throws in...)
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John Cowan wrote:
> 
> IMO we should strongly consider adding a new informative (and mutable)
> "Fallback" header in the registry which will inform people about
> problematic cases like "cmn" and "arb" (Standard Arabic), instructing
> them which language subtag to fall back to in cases of match failure.
> These will have to be cherry-picked, like Suppress-Script, but Peter
> Constable has estimated that there are no more than 15 such cases
> actually in wide use.  For some macrolanguages, there is no dominant
> variety, and no special consideration is as yet required; if new dominant
> varieties come to exist in future, new Fallback headers can be added.
> RFC 4647bis can then be revised to explain how this header MAY be used
> to enhance matching.
> 

Wouldn't it be easier, more consistent, cleaner, and cherry-free to keep 
what we've already proposed in draft-09, that is, to include the 
Macrolanguage field in the registry as informative information (and then 
note in either 4646bis or 4647bis about possible courses of action in 
cases of match failure)?

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.
Chair -- W3C Internationalization Core WG

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.


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