en-GB-oxford LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

John Clews Scripts2 at sesame.demon.co.uk
Fri May 30 21:58:46 CEST 2003


Somebody (I lost track) wrote:

> >I'm not sure about en-gb-oed vs. en-oed.  Is it reasonable to talk about
> >en-us-oed, en-au-oed, and so forth?

OUP (Oxford University Press) is an entrepreneurial publisher.

I would be surprised if there were not already an Oxford dictionary
of Australian English.

Whether any differences would justify registering an en-au-oed tag is
a different matter.

In message <p05200a02bafd362d4f1a@[195.218.107.113]> Michael Everson writes:

> That would have the language precede the orthography. I have no
> strong view on this at present.

I think it would be a different case anyway, and I think that
subtag-syntax should be settled on.

The use of -us, -en, -au subtags (before -oed) would appear to
indicate that this relates to written language, and not do a spoken
form.

Thus en-gb-oed or en-gb-oxford would relate to written form (as in
conventions documented in the Oxford English Dictionary or its
spinoffs), while en-oed or en-oxford would relate to a spoken form
(as in "Oxford English on the BBC")

At least that's the consensus that I picked up.

The two would have definite and distinct IT needs - the first e.g. in
an XML publication application, the second in a voice output system.

I'd prefer to see a mechanism where en-gb-oed related to the written
form, and en-oxford would relate to the spoken form.

That is:

  ll-cc-anything for "written language tags" and
  ll-anything for "spoken language tags"

(where ll = language codes and where cc = country codes).

In my view as well,

  ll-ssss-cc-anything for "written language tags with a script specification"

ought to be added into the syntax as well, in the eventual replacement to
ISO 3066.


That syntax would allow consistency in relation to parallel
situations in other languages.

In passing, I would prefer not to see shortenings to en-oed and
en-oxford, for the two respective purposes.

In any such sortenings, the loss of a consistent syntax would be a pity.

Best regards

John Clews

--
John Clews,
Keytempo Limited (Information Management),
8 Avenue Rd, Harrogate, HG2 7PG
Tel:    +44 1423 888 432
mobile: +44 7766 711 395
Email:  Scripts2 at sesame.demon.co.uk
Web:    http://www.keytempo.com

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


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