Apostrophes (was: Re: ISO 639-3 changes)

Doug Ewell doug at ewellic.org
Sun Jan 25 20:22:54 CET 2015


Philip Newton wrote:

>> 5. We should not create "hybrid" Description fields that differ
>> *only* by type of apostrophe, as we currently have with N’Ko, since
>> these are hard to distinguish. (Yes, I know it is even harder to
>> distinguish ! from ǃ .)
>
> Abstain on this. I would tend to prefer having a ‘proper’ name in
> there, even if it looks very similar to the ASCII-only name, but if
> this is considered problematic I’m not going to complain.

To clarify, I don't mind this:

Description: Ju/'hoan    [ original ISO 639-3 spelling ]
Description: Juǀʼhoan    [ with click and "good" apostrophe ]

but I see no need for also adding:

Description: Juǀ'hoan    [ with click but ASCII apostrophe ]

John Cowan wrote:

> Mm, the idea is that N’Ko is best for display, but N'Ko is also
> acceptable.

Remember that Description fields are primarily for identification; 
they're not necessarily meant to be the ideal display name for the 
language (script, region, etc.). Sections 3.1.5 and 3.5 both say this.

It's true that most apps that show any display name (such as mine) will 
probably use what's in the Registry, but they always have the local 
option to fine-tune them.

Section 3.5 talks about having at least one Description in the Latin 
script, and then possibly others in other scripts. Having multiple 
Description fields that differ only slightly by apostrophe style abuses 
the intent of this provision, IMO.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, USA | http://ewellic.org ­ 



More information about the Ietf-languages mailing list