"Century" variants (was: Re: What to do with Gaulish ?)

Wed Nov 22 00:13:50 CET 2006

ietf-languages at iana.org
Hi, I am not asking for tags for 18th century and French  like Voltaire and 
Rousseau wrote in.  I am asking for tags to identify 16th or 17th century 
French in transition from Middle to Modern which was ultimately regularized 
into modern French by the Academie Francaise.
Thanks.
C. E. W.

>From: Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at wiktionaryz.org>
>To: CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail.com>
>CC: dewell at adelphia.net,  ietf-languages at iana.org
>Subject: Re: "Century" variants (was: Re: What to do with Gaulish ?)
>Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:40:29 +0100
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>Hoi,
>What we discuss is what language something is. A reworked version of 
>Voltaire or Rouseau is not the work the man wrote, it is modern French. 
>What a tag should indicate is the language used and not what is being said 
>or who it is attributed to. I do think the IETF is involved in describing 
>what a particular content technically is.
>
>An adaptation is as different from the original as a translation would be, 
>it is derived from a different era, in many ways a different culture.
>
>Thanks,
>   Gerard
>
>CE Whitehead schreef:
>>Hi, thanks, I will fill out the forms as I do think someone looking for 
>>Voltaire or Rousseau will specify Voltaire or Rouseau.
>>In addition, Middle French is not that far from 17th century; someone 
>>looking for 17th century French might want both.
>>So I am particularly interested in the subtags for the 16thc and 17thc.
>>
>>When the tag indicates the date, the user would then not go to the pages 
>>he/she did not want, but I feel with literature the only problem would be 
>>when someone wanted 16th century French translated into Modern French (and 
>>it is normally not translated, unlike Old French, which often is available 
>>in Modern French; correct me if I'm wrong here.)
>>Thanks.
>>
>>--C. E. Whitehead
>>
>>
>>>From: "Doug Ewell" <dewell at adelphia.net>
>>>
>>>CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail dot com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Of course, an ordinary user looking for a French text might not want 
>>>>Middle or Old French.  Middle French would be readable probably to the 
>>>>ordinary user, though different from Modern French.  The documents would 
>>>>be literary anyway and should not interest the ordinary user and 
>>>>probably would not come up in a search for business and shopping; they 
>>>>would come up in a search for French literature.  Only in a search for 
>>>>French literature I would think (hopefully, if the search engine works, 
>>>>if no one has put all kinds of fictitious stuff in the meta content 
>>>>information).
>>>
>>>Even scholars of French literature, looking for (say) Voltaire or 
>>>Rousseau, may not necessarily want to pull up works in Old or Middle 
>>>French such as the chansons de geste.  The scholar who will accept 
>>>material in any of the three languages, like the businessman who will 
>>>accept English or French or Japanese, needs to specify this preference 
>>>explicitly.
>>>
>>>>In addition, should the pages come up, the second part of the tag 
>>>>indicates the date of the language.
>>>
>>>Here you are talking about the suggested "12thc" variant subtags, not the 
>>>ISO 639-based subtags "fr" and "frm" and "fro".
>>>
>>>I stand by the caveats I mentioned about the arbitrariness of tagging 
>>>language as "12th century."
>>>
>>>>If your pages are inserted into the body of a page created by the host's 
>>>>application, there is no place to list more than one language at a time; 
>>>>you can of course list different text processing languages in the 
>>>>various subsections delineated by html or xml or xhtml  (such as p for 
>>>>paragraph, div for division, span for still another section heading); 
>>>>but only one at a time.
>>>
>>>Yes, that is how it is done with existing technologies.  Most text, even 
>>>multilingual text, is in only one language *at a time*.  For text that is 
>>>truly in multiple languages simultaneously, such as "she has a certain je 
>>>ne sais quoi about her," the solution is for the language-tagging 
>>>structure of the text format -- HTML or PDF or proprietary word processor 
>>>or whatever -- to allow multiple language tags, NOT for a single language 
>>>tag to represent more than one language.
>>>
>>>>There is no way to identify a single language as both fr, French, and 
>>>>frm, Middle French.
>>>
>>>I assume you mean "identify a single text."
>>>
>>>>I'd like to say further that the option of having tags for say the 
>>>>European languages labelled: 12thc, 13thc, 14thc, 15thc, 16thc, 17thc 
>>>>would help those who needed to clarify the exact date of a language or 
>>>>language variant.
>>>>
>>>>I feel these would be useful tags!
>>>
>>>Then go ahead and fill out the necessary forms from RFC 4646 and send 
>>>them to this list.
>>>
>>>--
>>>Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
>>>http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
>>>http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
>>>http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>

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