Re: [Ltru] my technical position on extlang

Hoi,
I respectfully disagree, when yue, cmn are considered separate languages it
is impossible to explain why they should be called zh-yue, zh-cmn. When sign
languages are considered seperate languages it is impossible to explain why
they would be sgn-ase.

It is nice when you are deep into the thought processes as the people on
this list are that this thinking can be explained. I have tried to explain
it to people and I see eyes glaze over each time. When a language is a
language, it should be allowed to use them as such without any consideration
of the ballast of the future. In the end it is computers that  interpret
these codes, they do not have the same problems with synonymy
Thanks,
     Gerard

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 3:45 AM, Martin Duerst <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>
wrote:

> As a technical contributor, this is my technical position on extlang:
>
> To me, the very recent discussion has shown that going back to
> extlangs is preferable. The main reason for this, for me, is that
> it's easier to explain and deploy. There are very few people,
> even on this list, who can exactly explain why and where extlangs
> pose problems, and why they might be (somewhat) less desirable
> than not having them in some circumstances. On the other hand,
> explaining to people that zh is Chinese, zh-yue is Cantonese, and
> zh-cmn is Mandarin, seems more straightforward. Designing good
> standards and good technology means looking at all the details,
> but then going back to make sure the big picture is right.
>
> In my understanding, one of the main points against extlangs was
> that the "remove from the right" fallback hierarchy may not be
> right. That may or may not be true, depending on the case at hand,
> but that may or may not be true also for the relative order of
> script and region. Here, there is an advantage of having the
> hierarchy in the tag. More advanced matching algorithms can be
> developped without having to do registry lookup.
>
> So as a consequence, I personally favor going back to using
> extlangs, preferably exclusively.
>
> I'm okay with using extlangs only for those cases that already
> have a macrolanguage subtag currently available, or some other
> reasonable, not too 'cherry-picky' cutoff.
>
> I'm opposed to allowing both extlang and independent tags
> (i.e. both zh-yue and yue), but if that's what we as a WG
> decide, I can live with it.
>
>
> Regards,    Martin.
>
>
> #-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
> #-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp
>
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