xx-XX-nnnn vs. xx-nnnn in Chinese and German

John Clews Scripts2@sesame.demon.co.uk
Mon, 11 Feb 2002 21:24:19 GMT


Chinese and German: language-[country]-date
[was Re: Proposal: Language code "de-DE-trad"]

Earlier I wrote:

> >The same could also be possible for simplified Chinese too, which
> >again might allow more specificity than just "trad" and "simp."
> >For example
> >zh-cn-1962
> >could be deputed to have just that meaning (probably it's a different
> >date, but I'm sure that you get my drift).
> >
> >What pros and cons are there for that?

In message <OFCC1AEDA0.C4483367-ON86256B5D.00573048@sil.org>
Peter_Constable@sil.org writes:

> The fact that simplified is not used only in CN. The country is orthogonal
> to the script variant in this case, and the two should not get confused.

I take your point, Peter. However, that Chinese character
simplification reform was pushed forward in one country (CN) even
though also adopted in (SG) as well, I think, and naturally in (MO)
and (HK) too, as they are now part of (CN) though currently not much
used in (TW).

So my question is: are you saying that there should be legitimately

        zh-1962 (if that was the date) as well as or instead of
        zh-cn-1962?

Taking that further, we have proposals
 for

        de-DE-1996
        de-AT-1996
        de-CH-1996

Should we also have a proposal for

        de-1996?

If so, how would that differ from

        de-DE-1996
        de-AT-1996
        de-CH-1996

already proposed?

There is a real need to be able to specify local country
differences (e.g. using
        de-DE-1996 to refer to term lists which included Kartoffel and
        de-AT-1996 to refer to term lists which included Erdapfel, etc.

Best regards

John Clews

--
John Clews,
Keytempo Limited (Information Management),
8 Avenue Rd, Harrogate, HG2 7PG
Email: Scripts2@sesame.demon.co.uk
tel: +44 1423 888 432;

Committee Member of ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC22/WG20: Internationalization;
Committee Member of ISO/TC37/SC2/WG1: Language Codes