ID for language-invariant strings

[Mark Davis]

Ideally, we'd be able to come to consensus on a uniform approach, and
recommend to the LTRU group to put in a line documenting that.

Mark

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft.com>
wrote:

>  Some clarifications wrt my specific application scenario: the strings are
> not intended to be presented to users as a fallback, they are intended for
> programmatic usage. That said, some application could still choose to use
> this form of the font-family name to present to users as a fallback.
>
>
>
> So, we still have three sets of opinion on how to tag. Let me ask a
> different question: do people think there should be a single convention to
> be used for the kind of scenario I've described, or should the be left to be
> determined by application developers?
>
>
>
>
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:
> ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] *On Behalf Of *Mark Davis
> *Sent:* Monday, March 17, 2008 1:16 PM
> *To:* Randy Presuhn
> *Cc:* ietf-languages at iana.org
> *Subject:* Re: ID for language-invariant strings
>
>
>
> I agree with you that
>
> > However, for most of the examples it seems disingenuous to claim the
> > data is not linguistic in nature.  These are cases where we have stuff
> > that clearly *is* language in that in conveys meaning, but it doesn't
> entirely
> > "play by the rules" that apply to material that is *in* a particular
> > language....
>
> This is different from where I have a part number, or an internal code
> like "zh", where having the language value be "No linguistic content" is
> perfectly fine.
>
>
> > "und" seems wrong to me - it's not that we aren't able to figure out
> > what language this stuff is "in".
>
> I disagree about 'und'. I don't like a proliferation of codes where one
> works fine.
>
>
> Type: language
> Subtag: und
> Description: Undetermined
> Added: 2005-10-16
>
> "und" means "undetermined". Not "cannot figure out what language this
> stuff is in", not "cannot be determined", just "undetermined". That is about
> as neutral as you can be.
>
> If I have a language-neutral string like "Arial", that is to be presented
> to users as the name of a font, it certainly has linguistic content. It is
> not an arbitrary part number like SN305-SV, is not being presented as an
> internal code; it is being presented to users as a fallback name, in case
> there is no translation/transliteration into the user's language. I don't
> see how it is inappropriate to say that the language value is Undetermined.
>
> Mark
>
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>


-- 
Mark
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