Chinese "trad": ISO, IANA tags, and ISO CD 15924 (Script Codes)

[Peter_Constable@sil.org]

On 02/11/2002 03:40:43 PM John Clews wrote:

>Comments that language codes/tags be provided for simplified Chinese
>and traditional Chinese (meaning fonts, in effect) keep coming up
>from time to time, with things like zh-CN and zh-TW being broad
>"lookalikes" for these, but not exact equivalents.

Indeed.


>Suggestions like using zh-cn-1962 (or zh-1962) would be better in
>this regard...

Perhaps. I don't think we can judge these things in absense of some 
principles to guide us.


>Everything to do with this simplified/traditional area is a problem,
>because it can be difficult to specify what is meant by any one
>code/tag combination. However, unless the ICT community has some
>settled ideas, tags will inevitably be ambivalent, which is what
>nobody wants.
>
>It strikes me that unless some suggestions are listed somewhere for
>simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese (meaning fonts, in effect)
>people will use different tags with slightly different meanings.

This is but one case of potential problem. I think the number of potential 
cases is only going to increase. But the only way to avoid confusion, I 
think, is to bring sense to the kinds of things we want to distinguish by 
"language" tags.


>Any suggestions for adding "trad" and "simplified" Chinese into the
>list below (or combinations thereof) would be welcome - and also
>saying something about typical scope for each tag, as mentioned at
>the end of this text, before the table.

I won't venture comments of that sort in the absense of an agreed-upon 
model of language-related categories of interest for IT purposes. I 
submitted a proposal to present a paper on that at the next Unicode 
conference, and I've got to get a draft written by Feb 22, so I need to 
focus on that this week.



- Peter


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@sil.org>