The limit of language codes

[CE Whitehead]

Hi, all, my replies are in the text.

>Hoi,
>
>On 2/16/07, David Starner <prosfilaes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>On 2/16/07, Gerard Meijssen <GerardM at wiktionaryz.org> wrote:
>> > Why is it that there is no support for any specific functionality for 
>>so
>> > many languages ??
>>
>>Functionality in what sense? In the general sense, I'd say money.
>>Decent translation and internationalization takes a lot of
>>people-hours, which usually has to be paid.
>
>
>Functionality starts with being able to identify something in a language.
>Only when this is achieved you can consider translation,
>internationalisation and spell checking for such a language. The tools that
>are out there are really bad at allowing for the support of many languages.
>
>When we can convince the tool makers that they ALWAYS enter the language
>code as part of the meta data of a document and, when they were to allow 
>for
>all the linguistic entities that are recognised we would have a much rosier
>situtation.
>
>>It is because it is extremely hard to recognise content as
>> > such. Much analysis of the content of the Internet just does not happen
>>as a
>> > result. When people can reliably indicate: "Give an article on AIDS and
>>give
>> > it to me in my mother tongue", you will find that much content will
>>become
>> > available in other languages. It will become available because it 
>>allows
>>for
>> > better communication.

Hi, then give people the subtags they need to tag language--ancient or 
modern--accurately (if people who want modern content do not turn up 
ancient, that will be a help!!); computer software will process this list of 
subtags pretty fast, much faster than it will process all the other gizmos 
that need to go up on the internet (for people who think that people will 
buy things from sites that take all day to load).

>>
>>Putting everything else aside: why do _I_ care? It goes on my list
>>with things like the starving children in Africa and saving the
>>whales. I respect that you care, but there are thousands of issues in
>>this world worth caring about, and yours is not one of the handful I
>>have the interest and time to take up.

Languages, literature, ancient or modern, give people pride and maybe even 
keep them off drugs.

(I researched identity for some of my studies; the stuff I learned was 
interesting;
the age at which minority youth are really sorting out their identities 
matches the age of the achievement gap [it's grades 4-6; the big problem is 
thus that minority youth in countries like the U.S. do not get access to 
informational texts maybe because these are not taught in the early grades]; 
it's also the age at which people tend to turn a bit away from their parents 
and teachers and look to their peers;
you know people should be able to turn up whatever in a language, documents 
they want, not documents we want them to have;
everything on this planet has a right to some extent to get what it wants
[to a point]
and I do not think it is up to us or any internet standards committee to say 
old stuff or modern stuff is better.
Among other things, the internet helps people do their homework, in any 
case, and hopefully makes homework more interesting and easy--
though I'm not sure that that motivates most kids to stay in school as much 
as the promise of lucrative jobs;
but it might help a little!

I personally believe great literature and great content area science with 
literature and straight information about drugs and how to have clean 
waterwill serve many of the worlds' poor better than information on 10,000 
drugs; I have a couple of illnesses that I cannot really treat with drugs 
because ultimately drugs do not work; I have to rely on nutrition and fresh 
air--something when you are young you sometimes forget/take for granted;
but if people want information in their language on drugs, I will not stop 
them!  It's something they need to decide, though I personally hope they 
will get other things too!)
>
>
>When you do not care why should we care for codes for  English of the
>Romantic era, the Elizabethan era. These people are dead !!
>
>>When you only consider books for "Project Gutenberg", you will agree that
>> > from a language point of view there is not much consistency for western
>> > books dated before 1700. They each feature very much their own unique
>> > language. They are all very much one of a kind.
>>
>>No, not really. One Elizabethan English book uses much the same
>>language as the next. If you want to spell-check or something, it's a
>>little different, but readers of such material don't care.
>>
>> > You want to be practical for
>> > your own purposes but I am not convinced that what you propose does 
>>help
>> > that much.
>>
>>It helps me clearly label books in a way that people can have an idea
>>whether they can read contents, and makes sure they don't get mixed in
>>with books for people who speak modern Czech or whatever.
>
>
>Your argument is as good as mine.. Why should I care .. what is in there 
>for
>me.. However I do care that you get it right. I do object to your 
>dismissing
>the needs that exist for relevancy in the implementation of standards. I
>think you do the work done a disservice.
>
>>As to your notion that we are not a missionary group, well to be brutally
>> > honest I think the lack of marketing is one of the failings of the work
>>that
>> > has been done. The work may be of good quality but the relevancy is not
>>what
>> > it should be. With only 15% of the Internet content tagged and much of
>>it
>> > tagged incorrectly we may convince ourself that what we do is relevant.
>>We
>> > have however not convinced the world at large.
>>
>>I don't care. My goal in life is not to convince the world at large
>>that what I do matters. I'm studying to be a mathematician, and most
>>people couldn't name five mathematicians if their life depended on it.
>>Apathy here is a life saver.
>
>
>I have Wikipedia to help me out. There is this movie about a "beautiful
>mind"..
>
>Less tongue in check, this standard is a powerful tool being used by
>>many organizations. We've hardly failed if all this means is that
>>computer programmers and librarians have and use a standard set of
>>language tags.
>>
>
>I have my background in computing... Really many people in this field do 
>not
>care at all about standards. One reason is that many standards are only
>available at a fee another is that not all Standards are considered 
>equally.
>I seriously doubt that we do that well.
>
>Thanks,
>    Gerard

--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar at hotmail.com

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