New extension for transformed languages

[Philippe Verdy]

Le 5 mars 2012 02:55, Doug Ewell <doug at ewellic.org> a écrit :
>> The problem is not there (in the script) but in the
>> recognition of the language itself. There are MUCH more troubles with
>> the codifications of languages, than there are for scripts (the
>> wellknown exceptions being the case of IPA notation vs. Latin script ;
>> or Simplified vs. Traditional sinograms, and sometimes, vs.
>> Japanese-only sinograms not considered Kanji=Traditional).
>
> What problems with language coding do you see?

The first problem is to have the language recognized as such and not
just as an informal, undesired dialect of another official form of the
same language. There have been lots of battles (still continuing
today) about the variants of Serbo-Croatian, still continuing today
between Serbian and Montenegrin, or Romanian vs. Moldovan.

Even about French itself (e.g. it is still impossible to encode the
Norman language, considered a dialect of standard French, from which
there are several continental and insular variants in Jersey and
Guernsey...).

You could say the same between Danish and Swedish (there are still
promoters of an unified languages). Look at German and Dutch: it's
hard to make a strong delimitation between them, and only the official
standardized forms are just particular points in a continuum too.

Similar issues of classification occur within Slavic languages of
Central Europe. I'm not a specialist of the situation in India, but
the many languages are certainly forming various continuums as well,
even if only a dozen of them are standardized at the national level.
The same is probably occuring too in China (notably in the Southern
regions).

The question of codification comes next after the resolution of those
linguistic battles of classification between what are considered plain
languages or dialects of the same language, even if they have several
standardized forms made official but contradicting the language
continuums between them.