Re: [Ltru] Consensus call: extlang

[Peter Constable <[e-mail]>]

From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Shawn Steele

>> ... that the Accept-Language value meaning 'Mandarin then French' would be
>> * under RFC 4646: "zh, fr"
>> * under this proposal: "zh-cmn, zh, fr, zh-cjy;q=0, zh-cpx;q=0, zh-czh;q=0,
>> zh-czo;q=0, zh-gan;q=0, zh-hak;q=0, zh-hsn;q=0, zh-mnp;q=0, zh-nan;q=0,
>> zh-wuu;q=0, zh-yue;q=0".
>
> Under RFC 4646 "zh, fr" doesn't mean "Mandarin, then French" it means
> "Chinese, then french".

Mark: Shawn has a valid point here: you present the two from unequal sets of premises without clarifying that difference, thus (unintentionally, I'm sure) giving a subtly deceiving argument.

All of the zh-??? tags have be valid for 4646 as they would be for a 4646bis with extlang. Thus, all other things being equal, the Accept-Language value "zh, fr" should have just the same meaning and effect in the latter as for the former, as should the value "zh-cmn, zh, ...".

I think that perhaps the contrast you present here is best described not as that between 4646 and a 4646bis *specifically with extlang*, but rather between a situation in which "zh" is predominantly used and a situation in which it is recommended that content be tagged for the specific, encompassed Chinese language rather than being tagged generically as "zh" -- a situation that could obtain under 4646 as well as under 4646bis. And if that situation obtained in a 4646-without-extlang world, then the corresponding Accept-Language value would be "cmn, zh, fr, cjy;q=0, cpx;q=0, ..."


While I was the proto-proponent for extlang, I've come to lean toward no-extlang since, to the extent that I've been able to think through scenarios,

- it seems to me that the benefits are far more limited than what I initially was supposing, and

- because one of the benefits is to slip fallback relationships into a small set of tags whereas in general good fallback needs a lot more -- true for cases related to macrolanguages let alone for the very many more cases not related to any macrolanguages.

I'm concerned, though, about such not-quite-careful-enough cases being made for (or against): someone is likely to sense something not quite right and come back, perhaps with an equally slightly-flawed case, in which event we end up not making any progress. So, to your comment,

> we should consider each of the applications of language tags:
> identification, lookup, filtering, and Accept-Language, and be
> able to have a reasoned judgment on the technical merits

I would only add: we need to do this with *carefully* reasoned judgment, pausing to make sure the arguments presented really do stand up.



Peter


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