English language

[Vint Cerf]

Jefsey,

I think we are going to have to stick with RFC rules for now and that  
says clear English for the 4 proposed documents. It does not say  
minimize the text.

While translations may be helpful, I would urge not do to anything  
like that until we settle on an English language text. Among the  
significant concerns about multiple language versions is which is  
definitive, but for the present, the English language RFCs are  
considered definitive.

Any translations have to be treated as "helpful" but not definitive.

vint


On May 26, 2008, at 4:52 AM, JFC Morfin wrote:

> At 20:05 25/05/2008, John C Klensin wrote:
>> If there are other organizational proposals, I wish someone would  
>> start formulating them and sharing them with the rest of us.
>
> I think we have a problem with RFC 3935 considering English as an  
> element of security for the IETF technology. This is in line with  
> the IDNA conception retaining English ASCII as the core of the  
> system. However, IDNA should deploy in a multilingual environment  
> as well. I would therefore suggest that we retain the minimum  
> English verbosity in the Protocol and Tables parts, to simplify  
> translations and insure  a clear understanding of the translated  
> texts.
>
> I am ready to cooperate in applying an ISO approach and working on  
> a parallel version in French. ISO experience shows that it leads to  
> much clearer and terser English texts. Very often ISO translations  
> in other languages are also based upon the French version  
> considered as more precise. This create a problem when there is a  
> better French wording due to the value added by the ISO translators  
> that has not been fed-back to then closed English speaking working  
> group. Due to the importance of IDNA in the Asian part of the  
> world, I would also suggest that a similar parallel version in  
> Chinese and/or Japanese is/are also worked out. There is a  
> multilinguistics rule we identified that when working in parallel  
> on a document using several languages semantics mutually refine and  
> pragmatics mutually filter.
>
> jfc
>
>
>
>
>
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