Re: [Ltru] Consensus call: extlang

[Leif Halvard Silli <[e-mail]>]

Randy Presuhn 2008-06-03 20.58:

> As a technical contributor...
> 
>> From: "Phillips, Addison" <[e-mail]>
>> To: "Randy Presuhn" <[e-mail]>; "LTRU Working Group" <[e-mail]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 11:32 AM
>> Subject: RE: [Ltru] Consensus call: extlang
> ...
>> A corollary example might help:
>> 
>> It is always permissible to tag US English as 'en'.
>> It is also permissible, within one's own application,
>> to require that people who want something other than
>> US English to us a different tag from 'en'.
>> For example, they can be required to use the tag 'en-GB'.
>> 
>> What is not permissible is to dismiss someone else's
>> UK English content tagged as 'en' as wrong.
> ...
> 
> It is also permissible, within one's own application,
> to tag UK English as 'en' and require US English to be
> tagged 'en-US'.  But "permissible" doesn't mean "advisable".


Agree.

> I would argue that if an application knows the difference
> and cares about the difference, that it would be much better
> to use both 'en-GB' and 'en-US', and reserve naked 'en' for
> the cases where there's no value in making the distinction
> (e.g., it can't tell or doesn't care).

Almost agree. But I do not think that the en/en-US/en-UK example 
covers the Macrolanguage situation 100%.

Where I agree with you is that the 'en' should be used "for the 
cases where there's no value in making the disctinction". 
However, when a system is offered only in one variant of English, 
then were is the value in making any distinction?

I think this is a parallell to macrolanguages. If you only plan on 
supporting the macrolanguage - whichever encompassed language you 
pick to represent it - there is little value in saying "Mandarin" 
or "Bokmål". Just say "Chinese" and "Norwegian".

Then, when the OS vendor switches to support more of the 
encompassed varieties -- and if  translations for the new, 
encompassed languages are not immmediately available for all of 
the languages -- then the  macrolanguage code could be used as a 
tag for applications which only exist in the dominant language, 
thus (hopefully) making them available for all the encompassed 
langauges.

(For example, for Norwegian Mac OS X, Apple could have offered the 
basic OS X GUI in 'nn' tagged Nynorsk and 'nb' tagged Bokmål. Two 
NOrwegian GUIs for the two usergroups. At the same time, they 
could have kept their old base of 'no' tagged Bokmål applications 
in order to make them available for both Nynorsk and Bokmål users.)

So, where I differ from many  of you -- it seems -- is that I see 
a **permanent** value in the Macrolanguage tag.
-- 
leif halvard silli
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