Language Identifier List up for comments
John Burger
john at mitre.org
Tue Dec 14 17:10:45 CET 2004
Elizabeth J. Pyatt wrote:
> As a linguist, I would want a taxonomy to describe all spoken
> languages/dialects. For instance, there is no :"language code" for the
> different spoken Chinese forms (e.g. Cantonese, Hakka, etc) and using
> a country code would not be adequate to distinguish them.
I dithered and finally removed the following from my earlier message,
but damn the torpedos, I'll just say it: In general, I've always been
disappointed at what I perceive to be a bias in the language codes
toward text. The inability to distinguish Cantonese and Mandarin
without pretending they are dialectal variants, is one example, and the
way all sign languages are lumped together is another.
- John D. Burger
MITRE
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