Re: [Ltru] my technical position on extlang

> From: Leif Halvard Silli [mailto:lhs@malform.no]

> > My hunch is that, for most macrolanguage cases, most users would not
> be able to handle most of the encompassed languages. If that's the case,
> then you're making an argument *against* extlang.
> >
>
> And if your hunch is wrong, you are making an argument for Extlang.

Not necessarily. If a implies b, it does not logically follow that not b implies not a.

Besides, I doubt my hunch is wrong: AFAIK, it's not the case that most Chinese are able to handle most Chinese languages; it's not the case that most Quechua are able to handle most Quechuan languages; it's not the case that most Zapotec are able to handle most Zapotec languages.

> The
> question is: how do you count "most users"?

Well, you tell me: it was needed for the pro-extlang argument being made.

> My answer is that firstly, one should focus on the native Macrolanguage
> speakers.

That's fallacious in the general case: nobody speaks a macrolanguage, unless you consider a macrolanguage to be equal to one of the encompassed languages or believe that all of the presumed individual languages are really not distinct at all. That may hold in a case like Serbo-Croatian, in which socio- and politico-linguistic factors have been the basis for positing multiple languages rather than purely linguistic factors. But that's the exceptional case.

> Secondly, one should focus on web pages made in the countries
> were these langauges are a dominant language. Their needs should count
> the most.

As has been observed before, 4646bis is not creating language tags solely for the Web.

Peter
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