Addition request: alsatian
Addison Phillips
addison at yahoo-inc.com
Thu Jan 10 18:52:32 CET 2008
Mark Davis wrote:
7> A second issue is that Alsatian speakers do not think of
themselves as
> speaking "Alemannic" and that the idea of using gsw alone may be
> difficult to "sell" to these people.
>
>
> We are tagging languages, not names of languages. The fact that some
> people call a language, dialect, or variant by a different name doesn't
> justify having a variant subtag.
>
>
I agree: the fact that people call a language something else calls for a
separate description. Or possibly a comment.
One resolution to the conundrum of Karen's request would be:
Now: insert a comment into the 'gsw' record like this:
Comment: This language is also use in the Alsace region
of France, where it is referred to as Alsatian.
Later, if ISO acts in a manner consistent with changing the description,
add a Description field saying 'Alsatian' and remove the comment. Note
that "acts in a manner..." may include not adding the description
officially to ISO 639.
If, for some reason, Alsatian turns out to be a regional dialect of
'gsw' and if evidence is presented here that "gsw-FR" is insufficient to
represent that dialect, register Stephane's variant (and remove the
comment).
--
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.
Chair -- W3C Internationalization Core WG
Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.
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