[Ltru] Windows 8 user languages and BCP 47

[Denis Gikunda]

+1 to Mark's comments.  Peter, congratulations - this is a milestone indeed.

On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Mark Davis ☕ <mark at macchiato.com> wrote:

> That's a great achievement; I know something of what it is like to get all
> of the pieces lined up  in a complex product (or set of products) to make
> something like this happen. It takes a lot of work…
>
> I'll look forward to trying it out; congratulations to you and your team,
> Peter!
>
> Mark <https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033>
> *
> *
> *— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —*
> **
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 12:43, Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft.com>wrote:
>
>>  [I know this will sound like a product plug. It may be that in part,
>> but I really do want to applaud BCP 47.]****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> The Windows 8 Consumer Preview went live today for the public to download
>> and try out. One of the changes in this release is in the area of
>> international settings, with the new Language control panel as the focal
>> point. In previous versions of Windows, users were very limited (relative
>> to the thousands of known languages) in terms of getting Windows to
>> recognize the languages that they use. Thanks to ISO 639-3 and BCP 47, this
>> is radically changed in Windows 8: users are now able to indicate
>> preferences from thousands of languages (and tens of thousands of
>> language-script pairings).****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> To keep from having an overwhelming number of options from being
>> presented, we don’t list every possibility by default. But using the search
>> feature when you add a language, you can search on many additional language
>> names, and you can also search using a BCP 47 tag. Any “valid” BCP 47
>> language tag will be accepted, and that language can be added to your user
>> profile. For our purposes, “valid” means (i) subtags are known (we’ll have
>> a snapshot of LTRU), (ii) the script for the language is known (either an
>> explicit script subtag or the script can be implied from the language
>> subtag), and (iii) the script is one for which Windows 8 has text display
>> support (I’ve lost count—close to 50).****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> So, for instance, users can add to their profile languages such as
>> sga-Oghm (Old Irish written in Ogham script) or tlh-Latn (Klingon written
>> in Latin script). And with that, they can search for web content in those
>> languages, or edit documents in those languages, or write apps or language
>> tools like spelling checkers for those languages.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> It’s a milestone with personal significance for me—I started looking into
>> how thousands of lesser-known languages could be supported in commercial
>> software over 12 years ago. I want to give a big thanks to everyone who was
>> involved in the (sometimes arduous) work on BCP 47 during that time. I see
>> this a great success for BCP 47, and I hope it will lead to lots of success
>> stories for smaller language communities throughout the world.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Thanks, all!****
>>
>> Peter Constable****
>>
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>>
>>
>
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