Alemanic & Swiss German
Gerard Meijssen
gerardm at wiktionaryz.org
Tue Dec 5 14:20:35 CET 2006
Hoi,
The big advantage of the SIL material is that it is big and much more
inclusive then any else that is around. It serves a need that is not
addressed at present. The single biggest problem with your proposal is
that it is an enormous step backwards when you want to address all the
content that is currently in ISO-639-3 line by line. Just as if the need
that ISO-639-3 addresses is not present.
From my perspective the RFC 4646 that is seemingly inevitable is
problematic because it only addresses on how it wants to be backwards
compatible and is willing to sacrifice the easy understanding that a
single list would bring with a hybrid system. A hybrid system where it
is unclear to me how they want to link it to the ISO-639-3 content with
the argument that they are not willing to address it until the standard
is standard. From my perspective, when the ISO-639-3 is finally
ratified, this list of how to link needs to be there in a finished form.
By not having it at the time of ratification, it makes the IANA codes
less then credible. By not having a period where these codes can be
discussed, you will not have buy in.
Yes, you cannot have it both ways. :( In a presentation of Google it
was suggested that the coding of content with language codes is so
unreliable that it is practically useless. This seems to suggest to me
that good marketing for the codes and clear benefits for using correct
codes is needed. To me this lack of the effectiveness of these codes and
the lack of good marketing makes the whole argument for backwards
compatibility increasingly weak.
The notion of having politically correct content is as dangerous as not
being responsive. The SIL material has been available for a long time. I
have found the people at SIL to be responsive. The ISO-639-3 list has
been around since 2005.. Has there not been ample time to go over this
list and find fault where it can be found and remedy it ? Personally, I
find your suggestion outrageous.
As to political correctness, the Mapuche people have started a court
case against both the government of Chile and Microsoft because they
insist on an orthography not accepted by the Mapuche people. The Mapuche
live both in Chile and Argentina. The notion that national interest need
to be addressed is logical but up to a point. Making nationalistic
issues the primary argument for what makes a language ignores that many
languages are spoken in many countries which refutes the argument that
it is for the single countries involved to be the sole judge to decide
on such languages.
Thanks,
GerardM
Marion Gunn schreef:
> This is exactly the kind of carry-over of errors (based on same bad
> experiences of errors carried over from MARC into another part of 639)
> to which some, including myself, objected years ago, but the SIL block
> looks like being pushed through anyway.
>
> I still believe that it would be far better, even at this late state,
> to build each part of 639 ab initio, with due care for cultural
> concerns and consulting actual language groups at National Body level,
> as this is a better (older, more politically correct) protocol, rather
> than take such dangerous shortcuts as swallowing undigested SIL material.
>
> mg
>
> On 4 Dec 2006, at 17:06, scríobh Karen_Broome at spe.sony.com
> <mailto:Karen_Broome at spe.sony.com>:
>
>> ...
>> However, the spelling "Alemannic" seems to be far more common than
>> Alemanic. I'm wondering if that's a spelling mistake on SIL that I
>> copied over assuming that resource to be authorative. If I were
>> submitting this application today, I would use the spelling with two
>> n's.
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