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<BR>Hi.<BR>Doug Ewell <A title="suppress-script values for macrolanguage-encompassed languages" href="mailto:ietf-languages%40alvestrand.no?Subject=Re%3A%20suppress-script%20values%20for%20macrolanguage-encompassed%20languages&In-Reply-To=%3C6E1CC6476E414E4C9CB4F4146B2E9CA0%40DGBP7M81%3E">doug at ewellic.org </A><BR>Thu Dec 23 22:49:29 CET 2010 <BR><BR><!--beginarticle--><PRE>> Two things in particular bother me about this thread:
> 1. The conflict between macrolanguages and Suppress-Script. I don't
> have an answer for this, but it seems wrong somehow that a given
> macrolanguage such as 'ar', which is commonly identified with a variety
>(Standard Arabic) that is overwhelmingly written in a single script, </PRE><PRE>Yes, Standard Arabic is overwhelmingly written in a single script (I took two years of it and then spent a year in an Arabic-speaking country -- that's my background).
> should not have a Suppress-Script of 'Arab' because there are certain
> minority varieties of that language like Cypriot Arabic that may not be
> overwhelmingly written in that script. 'ar' was supposed to be one of
> the classic use cases for Suppress-Script.</PRE><PRE>And both [ar] (the macro-language) and [arb] (standard Arabic) should get a suppres-script [arab], as should in my opinion Egyptian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and North Levantine Arabic (however not being a native speaker and having studied primarily the Standard with a bit of Levantine Arabic I don't feel my opinion is definitive).</PRE><PRE>But I am not sure what script is most used online to write dialects which are not traditionally written at all -- for which the most common uses would be blogs, text, email, etc, also some Bible translations (which online seem to be overwhelmingly in Latin script I think for convenience). These may be overwhelmingly written in Arabic script but it's also possible that a mix of scripts is used.</PRE><PRE>The goal I am assuming is to tag online content appropriately.</PRE><PRE>> 2. The idea that we are now relying on individual research and
> "feedback from native bloggers and such" to determine Suppress-Script
> appropriateness. </PRE><PRE>Suit yourself; I personally prefer to hear from the communities that will use the subtags. As for individual research -- Peter proposed this and no one acted on it so I thought I'd go through and see which were the best candidates for suppress-script, based on what I could find and what I knew from previous experience/knowledge of linguistics -- and so I am expressing my opinion on the suppress-script requests Peter submitted; I assumed that everyone on the list would offer an opinion.</PRE><PRE>But I can't say what data the language subtag reviewer will consider when he makes his decision. </PRE><PRE>> I understood Suppress-Script to be for the obvious </PRE><PRE>> cases, to discourage people from adding patently pointless script
> subtags (as in "en-Latn" or "ru-Cyrl").
Yes that's my understanding too -- suppress-script is to indicate what script online content in a particular language is overwhelmingly written in. Now what do you or anyone know about Konkani, Tamashek, or even Malay varieties? Because these were cases where I was unsure of the appropriateness of suppress-script and I don't know much about any of these.</PRE><PRE>Thanks.</PRE><PRE> Best,</PRE><PRE>--C. E. Whitehead</PRE><PRE><A href="mailto:cewcathar@hotmail.com">cewcathar@hotmail.com</A> </PRE><PRE> </PRE><PRE>> --
> Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | <A href="http://www.ewellic.org/">http://www.ewellic.org</A>
> RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ is dot gd slash 2kf0s
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