RE: [Ltru] Extended language tags (long reply)

[[e-mail]]

The comment I quoted was in reply to this comment from me. I think it was 
pretty clear that I was talking about dialects of Dutch. The context for 
this comment was not RFC 4646, it was ISO 639-6 and some of the 
interesting things I saw in its hierarchical structure and spoken/written 
distinctions:

Dialects represented here are critical to us even if we only use a small 
subset of these codes. The difference between Dutch and Flemish is 
important in our world. I understand that Dutch productions are often 
subtitled in Flanders because the accent is so different. In written form, 
there is very little to distinguish the two dialects. Even 639-3 doesn't 
recognize Flemish. 

The people tasked with classifying content and developing linguistic 
classifications are usually not people who can tell the difference between 
Flemish and Vlaams given a piece of data that merely says "Flemish." For 
this reason, I request clarification on both the Dutch and Vlaams pages on 
the Ethnologue site. This would help.

This is now probably off-topic for the IETF list, but serves as a reminder 
of the confusion that can result from the combination of such different 
language standards in BCP 47 and the need for adequate documentation and 
disambiguation at the Ethnologue site. I think ISO 639-3 may prove to be 
too complex for the average classifier of linguistic content. 

Regards,

Karen Broome
Metadata Systems Designer
Sony Pictures Entertainment
310.244.4384





Peter Constable <[e-mail]> 
10/10/2007 05:45 PM

To
"[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
cc
'ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee' <[e-mail]>
Subject
RE: [Ltru] Extended language tags (long reply)






[cc to JAC]

The documentation problem is something that ISO 639 RAs potentially can 
and probably should address so that it's clear to implementers that "vls" 
is indeed the identifier for the language variety typically meant by the 
appellation "Flemish".

Note, though, that there's no way to escape the issue Ethnologue is 
calling out: that "Flemish" and "Vlaams" are sometimes used to refer to 
the variety usually called (in English) Dutch. If someone wants to find 
the ID for "Flemish", they must first make sure they know what language 
variety it is they are really dealing with. That is not a problem that ISO 
639 can deal with.

Also, ISO 639 cannot really deal with the UI issue. Languages can have 
many names. Some names may go in or out of vogue; some names may be 
strongly preferred in some places and simultaneously strongly disparaged 
in other places. It is not the role of the ISO 639 JAC or the RAs to give 
out recommendations as to what names should be exposed to users in 
products.

Finally, wrt our email exchange in 2005, I think I may have expressed 
things in a way that was misunderstood. I believe this is the bit in 
question:

<quote>
E.g. Karen mentioned "nld-BE" (3066 would use require nd-BE) for Flemish, 
though 639-3 will provide "vls". I expect a successor to RFC 3066 will 
consider both valid, though we can't force people to use "vls" if they 
happen to come up with "nd-BE".
</quote>

I'm pretty sure I did not mean to imply by these comments that I 
considered "vls" appropriate for Dutch spoken in the Flemish region. I 
believe I thought we were discussing Flemish aka Vlaams.



Peter


> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 1:59 PM
> To: John Cowan
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [Ltru] Extended language tags (long reply)
>
> Without additional disambiguation, this is very confusing to just about
> anyone with a language list that includes Flemish. It is especially
> confusing to me as the editor of ISO 639-3 previously indicated to me
> and
> the MPAA that this was indeed the tag for the Flemish dialect of Dutch.
> Granted, 639-3 was in DIS status at that point. After ISO 639-3 was
> published, I recommended the "vls" tag for a non-RFC-4646 usage than
> spanned efforts of several studios.
>
> Could we make a request for just a bit more disambiguation in the
> Ethnologue entry?
>
> This is text I received in a private e-mail about the tag when I
> presented
> a list of film languages a couple years back and asked for equivalents
> in
> ISO 639-3. I specifically noted the need to distinguish the Flemish
> dialect of Dutch from the Netherlands variant:
>
> "ISO 639-3 does have an entry for "Flemish", though it happens to use
> the
> autonym "Vlaams" for the reference name. That is, on the one hand, a
> documentation problem and, on the other, a UI problem: a developer
> needs
> to be able to discover that the entry "vls, 'Vlaams'" is for Flemish,
> and
> then they need to determine the UI string they should present to users
> that will allow *them* to find the correct item in a list.
>
> Regards,
>
> Karen Broome
>
>
>
>
>
> John Cowan <[e-mail]>
> 10/10/2007 12:31 PM
>
> To
> [e-mail]
> cc
> "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
> Subject
> Re: [Ltru] Extended language tags (long reply)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [e-mail] scripsit:
> > I wrote:
> >
> > (I still don't know whether "vls"
> > (639-3) falls back to "nld/dut" in 639-2, though Flemish is cited as
> a
> > synonym for Vlaams in 639-3.)
>
> It does not.
>
> > Sorry, I meant to say that "Flemish" is cited as a synonym on
> > Ethnologue.com.
>
> That is to say, the name "Flemish" has been used for both vls and
> the Belgian version of nl.
>
> --
> Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes:                    John Cowan
> I admire him, I freely admit it,
> http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> and when his time comes I shall                [e-mail]
> buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.
>
>
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