Correction for pinyin
Doug Ewell
doug at ewellic.org
Tue Mar 9 16:11:51 CET 2010
Mark Davis ☕ wrote:
> The main goal of the Description is not to completely describe the
> language tag; instead, it is to distinguish it from other tags with
> which it could be confused.
Of course. But a great many languages have names (including ISO 639
names and Description fields) which could potentially be confused with
others.
> So given that it is a quite natural mistake to think that the term
> "Pinyin" means what 99% of those knowing the word think it means
> (applying to over a billion people), rather than the minute fraction
> of a percent who would realize that it means something quite different
> (applying to 27K people), we owe it to readers to be quite clear about
> this.
I don't dispute that, but I also think most users of the Registry (and
for that matter ISO 639), when they see an entry that puzzles them,
might find out from a neutral standpoint what it means, rather than
assuming the standards organization is clueless. The RA really does
understand that a transcription scheme is not a language.
> What you suggest is probably adequate, but we might go so far as:
>
> Pinyin (a Niger-Congo language spoken in Cameroon)
Just to be clear for all, you support putting this information in the
Description, while I support putting it in a Comments field.
--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | http://www.ewellic.org
RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ http://is.gd/2kf0s
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