Re: [Ltru] Macrolanguage usage

["Phillips, Addison" <[e-mail]>]

Shawn wrote:
>
> > So we have a small impasse, indicative of the larger problem here: do
> we or do we not
> > recommend against the use of 'zh' to tag Mandarin Chinese? It isn't
> the tagging of
> > Cantonese that is the controversy. It is whether 'zh' is equated with
> Mandarin.
>
> I would recommend against tagging Mandarin chinese with zh.  Most
> people seem to be fairly clear that "zh" means "general unspecified
> chinese" and "cmn" means Mandarin.

Yes. I agree. I'm trying to incorporate everyone's comments into a coherent whole. Since the situation is complex, the "solution" or at least the explantation will necessarily be complex.

>
> --
> <t>With the adoption of this document, subtags for the encompassed
> languages became available for use in language tags. These subtags
> SHOULD be used instead of the macrolanguage subtag 'zh' to identify
> Chinese language content. While documents written in Standard Mandarin
> could use the 'cmn' (Mandarin) subtag, their wide accessibility can be
> indicated by using the 'zh' subtag in this case.</t>
> --
> <shawn> this makes no sense :)  The middle sentence ways "use cmn
> instead of zh". and the final sentence says "use zh instead of cmn".

No, not exactly. What is says is: you *can* label these as 'cmn', but you *can* (the 2119 keyword is MAY, maybe I should use that) indicate your *intention* of making the text (it is text) generally accessible.

Maybe rephrase as:

---
While documents written in Standard Mandarin SHOULD use the 'cmn' (Mandarin) language subtag to form the larger language tag, for some applications where it is necessary to indicate that the text is intended for wide accessibility MAY be indicated by using the 'zh' subtag.
--

> If the last sentence is necessary, then it should mention back compat
> or other mechanisms (like as part of a list that also includes cmn).
> The way its written is like saying "tag english as 001 (world) because
> lots of people can read it".

Actually, we have a tag for that: it is "i-default" and that is, in fact, the purpose of "i-default".

> I don't think that zh should ever be
> appropriate for cmn (excluding maybe back compat concerns), unless
> people really don't know which chinese it is.  It has been made very
> clear that although most Cantonese speakers may be able to read
> Mandarin, it is not sort of general chinese readable by all when read,
> it is Mandarin.
>
It *is* Mandarin, but using the 'zh' tag might indicate that it is "general purpose" text, and not specific to a particular audience. Software resources, for example, typically use this form of Mandarin. My copy of Windows, for example, offers a number of flavors of Chinese locale--and they all appear to be Mandarin.

Addison
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