<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel" xmlns:p="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:powerpoint" xmlns:a="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:access" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882" xmlns:s="uuid:BDC6E3F0-6DA3-11d1-A2A3-00AA00C14882" xmlns:rs="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:rowset" xmlns:z="#RowsetSchema" xmlns:b="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:publisher" xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet" xmlns:c="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:component:spreadsheet" xmlns:odc="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:odc" xmlns:oa="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:activation" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" xmlns:q="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:rtc="http://microsoft.com/officenet/conferencing" xmlns:D="DAV:" xmlns:Repl="http://schemas.microsoft.com/repl/" xmlns:mt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/meetings/" xmlns:x2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/excel/2003/xml" xmlns:ppda="http://www.passport.com/NameSpace.xsd" xmlns:ois="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/ois/" xmlns:dir="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/directory/" xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:dsp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" xmlns:udc="http://schemas.microsoft.com/data/udc" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:sub="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/2002/1/alerts/" xmlns:ec="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#" xmlns:sp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" xmlns:sps="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:udcs="http://schemas.microsoft.com/data/udc/soap" xmlns:udcxf="http://schemas.microsoft.com/data/udc/xmlfile" xmlns:udcp2p="http://schemas.microsoft.com/data/udc/parttopart" xmlns:wf="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/workflow/" xmlns:dsss="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/digsig-setup" xmlns:dssi="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/digsig" xmlns:mdssi="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/digital-signature" xmlns:mver="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns:mrels="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships" xmlns:spwp="http://microsoft.com/sharepoint/webpartpages" xmlns:ex12t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns:ex12m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" xmlns:pptsl="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/SlideLibrary/" xmlns:spsl="http://microsoft.com/webservices/SharePointPortalServer/PublishedLinksService" xmlns:Z="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:" xmlns:st="" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Consider it in terms of putative character disunifications. If someone asked to have a character “Blort” encoded and we had no reason to suspect a connection to any already encoded character, then we’d probably treat that differently than if we knew that lots of content was already representing this as an already-encoded character “Flort”. When the decision is taken, we use the information available; if we had no knowledge of a connection with an already encoded character, shipped a new version of Unicode including “Blort” and then someone came along with additional info about the connection with “Flort”, that wouldn’t substantively change anything.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>So, I guess your question, as it pertains to Walliserdeutsch in relation to “de” and “gsw”, is whether it was reasonable to expect anyone had used “de” or “gsw” to tag Walliserdeutsch content. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This rationale comes to mind: by a vast, vast margin, content tagged “de” is in Standard “High” German, and with a few exceptions most other Germanic varieties are not particularly developed in terms of literature. So, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that there is no significant use of “de” for those varieties _<i>unless given evidence otherwise</i>_. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>A further principle supporting this rationale is that there can be definite _<i>dis</i>_advantages to using macrolanguage entities: they are useful so long as a certain distinction is not particularly interesting, but once that distinction becomes interesting then the macrolanguage becomes a burden. Consider, for instance, the inconvenience of having “lav” for the Latvian macrolanguage and also “lvs” for Standard Latvian / “ltg” for Latgalian. So, from this perspective, it seems to me like macrolanguage entities are things we would rather avoid whenever possible, implying that we create them only when effectively forced to. In the case of “lav”, established and documented usage in MARC may force us to change “lav” into a macrolanguage; but I don’t know of anything compelling us to do so for “de” or “gsw” as a result of coding Wallisertitsch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Peter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Mark Davis ?<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:23 AM<br><b>To:</b> Randy Presuhn<br><b>Cc:</b> ietf-languages@iana.org<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: Criteria for languages?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>It is the lack of a uniform policy that bothers me more than the particular case. Anything that is Walliserdeutsch right now would be either tagged "de" (because that was all that was available until gsw was encoded) or "gsw". Let's take precisely your wording and apply it to that case.<o:p></o:p></p><div style='margin-left:30.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>If an application requires standard <b>Swiss German</b> and <b>Walliserdeutsch</b> to be treated as distinct<br>languages, then clearly it would need to use the new subtag to identify standard<br>Swiss German, since "gsw" would mean "any kind of <b>Swiss German</b>, including <b>Walliserdeutsch</b>". This<br>is a natural consequence of our "no narrowing" rules - all of the data which is<br>currently precisely and accurately tagged as <b>Swiss German</b> would remain accurately<br>tagged, though most would no longer be precisely tagged. (Data for which the<br>tagger was unable to make a determination whether it was <b>Swiss German</b> or <b>Walliserdeutsch</b><br>would remain precisely tagged.) The assumption is that it is better to introduce<br>a (potentially lingering) imprecision in the tagging of legacy data, rather than to<br>cause any once-accurate tags on legacy data to become incorrect.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>If your reasoning is correct for Latvian, then it is also correct for Swiss German! If it is not correct for Swiss German, then it is not correct for Latvian.<br><br clear=all>Mark<br><br><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 09:46, Randy Presuhn <<a href="mailto:randy_presuhn@mindspring.com">randy_presuhn@mindspring.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Hi -<br><br>> From: "John Cowan" <<a href="mailto:cowan@ccil.org">cowan@ccil.org</a>><br>> To: "Peter Constable" <<a href="mailto:petercon@microsoft.com">petercon@microsoft.com</a>><br>> Cc: <<a href="mailto:ietf-languages@iana.org">ietf-languages@iana.org</a>>; "Doug Ewell" <<a href="mailto:doug@ewellic.org">doug@ewellic.org</a>><br>> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 9:29 AM<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>> Subject: Re: Criteria for languages?<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal>...<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>> Peter Constable scripsit:<br>><br>> > If the denotation of "lav" were changed to explicitly exclude Latgalian<br>> > (which would be necessary if its scope is not set to macrolanguage),<br>> > then an unknown number of librarians will have broken data. It would<br>> > be irresponsible of the ISO 639-RA/JAC to do such a thing, IMO.<br>><br>> Quite so.<br>><br>> In that case, the issue for us is: do we recommend that people continue<br>> to use "lav" for Latvian proper, or that they adopt the new subtag?<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal>If an application requires standard Latvian and Latgalian to be treated as distinct<br>languages, then clearly it would need to use the new subtag to identify standard<br>Latvian, since "lav" would mean "any kind of Latvian, including Latgalian". This<br>is a natural consequence of our "no narrowing" rules - all of the data which is<br>currently precisely and accurately tagged as Latvian would remain accurately<br>tagged, though most would no longer be precisely tagged. (Data for which the<br>tagger was unable to make a determination whether it was Latvian or Latgalian<br>would remain precisely tagged.) The assumption is that it is better to introduce<br>a (potentially lingering) imprecision in the tagging of legacy data, rather than to<br>cause any once-accurate tags on legacy data to become incorrect.<br><span style='color:#888888'><br>Randy</span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>_______________________________________________<br>Ietf-languages mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Ietf-languages@alvestrand.no">Ietf-languages@alvestrand.no</a><br><a href="http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages" target="_blank">http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages</a><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>