preliminary registration proposal for variant subtags "gendmale", "gendfem", "gendneut"

Mark Davis ☕ mark at macchiato.com
Thu Dec 20 00:54:37 CET 2012


That's useful to have it in concrete form.

1. I don't think we need the neutral form; that would just be the absence
of a variant.

2. I really don't like conflating the source with the audience; those are
two *very* different purposes. For comparison, in our software we have
gender support with three cases 'male', 'female', and 'other' (where
'other' means that the gender is unknown or unavailable). You can have a
message like "Welcome" which is translated differently depending on whether
the reader/listener is male, female, or other; *not* whether the speaker is
male or female. Example:

[SELECT_VIEWER_GENDER]
 [MALE]Benvenuto, [NAME]
 [FEMALE]Benvenuta, [NAME]
 [OTHER]Ti diamo il benvenuto,[NAME]
[END_SELECT]

On the other hand, you have Japanese phrasing that would be appropriate for
the gender of the *author/speaker*, not the the gender of the reader/listener.
And of course, there are other combinations, like where the message depends
on the gender of a third person:

[*SELECT*_GENDER]
 [MALE]You can always unblock him later.
 [FEMALE]You can always unblock her later.
 [OTHER]You can always unblock this person later.
[END_*SELECT*]

I think the only real case that can be made for a BCP47 tag is for
distinctions in language that are associated with the gender of the
speaker. And that should be very clear from not only the description, but
also the subtag. So I'd suggest changes like the following:

OLD

      Subtag: gendmale****

      Description: male gender****

      Prefix: *****

      Comments:****
      To be used for capturing a gender distinction in relation

      to the source of content (e.g., ‘Czech as spoken by a****

      male’) or the target audience for content (e.g.,****

       ‘applicable to a male Czech user’).

NEW

      Subtag: msource****

      Description: male source**

      Comments: Indicates a variant of content (speech or text)

      that would only be appropriate coming from a male speaker/writer.






Mark <https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033>
*
*
*— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —*
**



On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 2:42 PM, Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft.com>wrote:

>  To rein in the discussion from things I think are off-topic and out of
> scope, particularly complexities across the world’s languages in relation
> to grammatical gender, I’m sending draft requests to capture what I _*do*_
> intend the scope of consideration to be.****
>
> ** **
>
> (These encompass the male/female/neutral gender distinctions. In my
> original male, I did also mention ‘child’ as potentially related in terms
> of speech UI resources; I’ll leave that aside for now, though mention again
> here in case it’s a factor in how the gender distinctions are considered.)
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> This is not a formal proposal: I’m still looking for discussion on the
> idea generally to see if it’s a useful thing to consider at all.****
>
> ** **
>
> Also, my statement on scope above is not intended to rule out separate
> discussion of other distinctions such as level of formality (e.g., tutoyer
> vs. vouvoyer). My thoughts on that are different than for gender, but it is
> a separate topic.****
>
> ** **
>
> ----------------------------****
>
>   LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM****
>
>    1. Name of requester: Peter Constable****
>
>    2. E-mail address of requester: petercon at microsoft.com****
>
>    3. Record Requested: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       Type: variant****
>
>       Subtag: gendmale****
>
>       Description: male gender****
>
>       Prefix: *****
>
>       Comments: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       To be used for capturing a gender distinction in relation ****
>
>       to the source of content (e.g., ‘Czech as spoken by a ****
>
>       male’) or the target audience for content (e.g., ****
>
>        ‘applicable to a male Czech user’).****
>
> ** **
>
>    4. Intended meaning of the subtag: male gender****
>
>    5. Reference to published description****
>
>       of the language (book or article):****
>
>    6. Any other relevant information: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       This subtag is not intended for capturing grammatical ****
>
>       Gender of wordforms, morphemes or other such usage ****
>
>       pertaining to grammatical gender. An utterance may use ****
>
>       wordforms or inflections of a particular grammatical ****
>
>       gender by virtue of it being spoken by or addressed to ****
>
>       a person of a particular gender, and so the notion of ****
>
>       grammatical gender is not entirely unrelated. However, ****
>
>       the intent is to capture a characterization of the ****
>
>       speaker or target audience for a content item and not ****
>
>       a characterization of the grammatical or morphological****
>
>       structure of elements within the content.****
>
> ** **
>
>       An exemplary application would be in tailoring of user ****
>
>       Interface elements in a software product or personal ****
>
>       information device. For example, user-interface strings ****
>
>       or speech assets may be provided with male and female ****
>
>       variants, to be selected according to a user preference.****
>
>      ****
>
> ** **
>
> ----------------------------****
>
>   LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM****
>
>    1. Name of requester: Peter Constable****
>
>    2. E-mail address of requester: petercon at microsoft.com****
>
>    3. Record Requested: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       Type: variant****
>
>       Subtag: gendfem****
>
>       Description: female gender****
>
>       Prefix: *****
>
>       Comments: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       To be used for capturing a gender distinction in relation ****
>
>       to the source of content (e.g., ‘Czech as spoken by a ****
>
>       female’) or the target audience for content (e.g., ****
>
>        ‘applicable to a female Czech user’).****
>
> ** **
>
>    4. Intended meaning of the subtag: female gender****
>
>    5. Reference to published description****
>
>       of the language (book or article):****
>
>    6. Any other relevant information:****
>
> ** **
>
>       This subtag is not intended for capturing grammatical ****
>
>       Gender of wordforms, morphemes or other such usage ****
>
>       pertaining to grammatical gender. An utterance may use ****
>
>       wordforms or inflections of a particular grammatical ****
>
>       gender by virtue of it being spoken by or addressed to ****
>
>       a person of a particular gender, and so the notion of ****
>
>       grammatical gender is not entirely unrelated. However, ****
>
>       the intent is to capture a characterization of the ****
>
>       speaker or target audience for a content item and not ****
>
>       a characterization of the grammatical or morphological****
>
>       structure of elements within the content.****
>
> ** **
>
>       An exemplary application would be in tailoring of user ****
>
>       Interface elements in a software product or personal ****
>
>       information device. For example, user-interface strings ****
>
>       or speech assets may be provided with male and female ****
>
>       variants, to be selected according to a user preference.****
>
>      ****
>
> ** **
>
> ----------------------------****
>
>   LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM****
>
>    1. Name of requester: Peter Constable****
>
>    2. E-mail address of requester: petercon at microsoft.com****
>
>    3. Record Requested: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       Type: variant****
>
>       Subtag: gendneut****
>
>       Description: neutral gender****
>
>       Prefix: *****
>
>       Comments: ****
>
> ** **
>
>       To be used for capturing a gender distinction in relation ****
>
>       to the source of content (e.g., ‘Czech as spoken by either ****
>
>       a male or a female’) or the target audience for content ****
>
>       (e.g., ‘applicable to a male or female Czech user’).****
>
> ** **
>
>    4. Intended meaning of the subtag: neutral gender****
>
>    5. Reference to published description****
>
>       of the language (book or article):****
>
>    6. Any other relevant information:****
>
> ** **
>
>       This subtag is not intended for capturing grammatical ****
>
>       Gender of wordforms, morphemes or other such usage ****
>
>       pertaining to grammatical gender. An utterance may use ****
>
>       wordforms or inflections of a particular grammatical ****
>
>       gender by virtue of it being spoken by or addressed to ****
>
>       a person of a particular gender, and so the notion of ****
>
>       grammatical gender is not entirely unrelated. However, ****
>
>       the intent is to capture a characterization of the ****
>
>       speaker or target audience for a content item and not ****
>
>       a characterization of the grammatical or morphological****
>
>       structure of elements within the content.****
>
> ** **
>
>       An exemplary application would be in tailoring of user ****
>
>       Interface elements in a software product or personal ****
>
>       information device. For example, user-interface strings ****
>
>       or speech assets may be provided with male and female ****
>
>       variants, to be selected according to a user preference.****
>
>      ****
>
> ** **
>
> ----------------------------****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Peter****
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf-languages mailing list
> Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>
>
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