The objective here is to see whether there are any reasonably objective criteria behind the <b>application</b> of macrolanguages (not the concept, but the application), or whether it is a haphazard process, where the application is not well grounded. <meta charset="utf-8">The answer can make a difference as to what we do in ietf-languages with that information.<br>
<div><br></div>My first take was that it was haphazard, because in and of themselves Walliserdeutsch and Latgalian are parallel. <div><br></div><div>But if the relevant difference, according to what I think you are saying, is that </div>
<div><ol><li>Walliserdeutsch doesn't have a "major industry body" that has tagged a substantial amount of data incorrectly as Swiss German.</li><li>Latgalian has a "major industry body" that has tagged a substantial amount of data incorrectly as Latvian</li>
</ol>Then that is at least a workable, reasonably objective criterion. And from your statement, I assume that that is the criterion that ISO is using in this case.<div><div><div><div><br clear="all">Mark<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 13:44, Peter Constable <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:petercon@microsoft.com">petercon@microsoft.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Mark: what is the objective here?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Peter</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> <a href="mailto:mark.edward.davis@gmail.com" target="_blank">mark.edward.davis@gmail.com</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:mark.edward.davis@gmail.com" target="_blank">mark.edward.davis@gmail.com</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Mark Davis ?<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, December 04, 2009 9:25 AM<br><b>To:</b> Peter Constable<br><b>Cc:</b> Randy Presuhn; <a href="mailto:ietf-languages@iana.org" target="_blank">ietf-languages@iana.org</a></span></p><div class="im"><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: Criteria for languages?</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">We are starting to get somewhere. It would help me if you would look over the strawman criteria that I put out, just to see where we are agreeing or not. Below, I substituted what you appear to have as a criterion (and also fixed the omission that Randy noted). With these changes, is this what you are thinking of?</p>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">====</p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333">A. If </span></p>
</div><div><ol start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:#333333"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">X is being encoded,</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:#333333"><span><b><span style="color:black">NEW: A major industry body has been tagging X as Y (rightly or wrongly)</span></b></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt"></span></li>
</ol><ol start="2" type="1"><ol start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:#333333"><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt">OLD: A reasonable person, based on information in the registry, could have tagged X-content as Y in the past</span></i><span style="font-size:10.0pt"></span></li>
</ol></ol><ol start="3" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:#333333"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">There is good evidence that a substantial amount of data has been so tagged,</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:#333333">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt">and X and the standard/predominent version of Y are not mutually comprehensible (at least to the degree that say Scots English and Mississippi English are)</span></li></ol><p class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333">Then Y should be made into a macrolanguage, and a new Z should be encoded to represent the standard form of Y.</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333"> </span></p>
</div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333">B. For matching, Y should match <b>Y, </b>X and Z. (X should match X, and Z should match Z).</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333"> </span></p>
</div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333">C. For lookup, Y should fetch content marked with Z. (X should fetch X, and Z should fetch Z).</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#333333"> </span></p>
</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Mark<br><br></p><div><p class="MsoNormal">On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 08:41, Peter Constable <<a href="mailto:petercon@microsoft.com" target="_blank">petercon@microsoft.com</a>> wrote:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From: <a href="mailto:ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no" target="_blank">ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no" target="_blank">ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no</a>] On Behalf Of Mark Davis ?</p>
<div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>> A strict approach would be that if Latgalian is indeed a different<br>> language from (mutually incomprehensible with) Latvian, then it<br>> was incorrect to tag any Latgalian with "lav", and we just encode<br>
> a new language and move on. Same for Walliserdeutsch.</p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">That sounds entirely reasonable. It also sounded reasonable that Unicode should not encode any precomposed characters but rather use a dynamic-composition model. In both cases, legacy practice realistically keeps us from doing all the things that seem most reasonable. A major industry body has clearly been using "lav" for Latgalian (albeit this appears to have started only in the past 6 years); I'm not aware of indicators of any, let alone reasonably-widespread, use of either "de" or "gsw" for Walliserdeutsch, and so if Walliserdeutsch is deemed a separate language then I wouldn't saddle de or gsw with the hassles of a macrolanguage.<br>
<span style="color:#888888"><br><br><br>Peter</span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div></div>