ISO 639 - New item approved - N'Ko

[Debbie Garside]

My two penn'orth...

Doug wrote:

> We should focus here on Richard's suggestion to have two 
> Descriptions, one with the straight apostrophe and one with 
> the curly one.  I don't agree and apparently Michael doesn't 
> either.  Do we need to restart the two-week review period?

I think consensus was reached for the initial proposal and I don't think,
given the current debate, it would be wise to restart the two-week review
period. I think the issue raised by Richard is completely separate to the
registration request as it may have a bearing on other records currently
held within the registry.  At the moment there seems to be too many
variables being discussed for consensus to be achieved on that.

> Apparently there is no debate on the Suppress-Script field for N'Ko.

Agreed.  My current take on this is that there is no disagreement with the
proposal for N'Ko but rather a discussion as to whether to add an additional
description.  

IMHO, there are two possible courses of action:

Option 1.  Accept the proposal Doug has made (time is up - it is ready to
go) and ask Richard to make a formal request for an additional Description.
This can then be discussed in the appropriate manner/timescale and a course
of action agreed. 

Option 2.  Reject the proposal as made by Doug, revise and submit with
additional Description as proposed by Richard.

I'm giving a +1 to Option 1.  I don't think there is any harm in doing this
in two stages.
 

Best regards

Debbie Garside



> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no 
> [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Doug Ewell
> Sent: 08 June 2006 15:11
> To: ietf-languages at iana.org
> Cc: Michael Everson
> Subject: Re: ISO 639 - New item approved - N'Ko
> 
> Michael Everson <everson at evertype dot com> wrote:
> 
> >> Choosing between a plain ASCII apostrophe and a more 
> typographically 
> >> accurate, curly apostrophe does not seem to me to constitute 
> >> "alternative names" in the same sense.
> >
> > So much so that I wonder why this is an issue. I mean 
> really. Why is 
> > this an issue?
> 
> I think it would be inappropriate and silly to use one type 
> of apostrophe for the script N'Ko and another for the 
> language N'Ko.  To me they are not "alternative names," but 
> they create a completely arbitrary difference.  Searching 
> would not necessarily work as expected, for instance.
> 
> >> We even went so far as to use the "acute accent" 
> character, U+00B4, 
> >> in the name "Gwich´in" because that is what ISO 639 used.
> >
> > You did WHAT? Oh, this is too depressing. The Gwich'in 
> language uses a 
> > glottal stop, which could be represented by U+0027 APOSTROPHE or by
> > U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK, although the 
> **correct** character
> > to use is U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE (see 
> > http://www.languagegeek.com/dene/gwichin/gwichin.html). If 
> ISO 639 is 
> > using U+00B4 ACUTE ACCENT this is some sort of bizarre 
> fallback, and 
> > it is **not** what we should be using. We should use the correct 
> > character (as we do in ISO 15924), and if ISO 639 is using 
> the wrong 
> > one, we should help them to correct it.
> 
> I found the thread in LTRU, from the 2005-04-24 time frame.  
> I had originally flattened all the apostrophes to U+0027 
> (also for Ge'ez and N'Ko), then Frank Ellermann suggested 
> leaving them as the ISO standards had them instead of 
> "second-guessing" ISO, and nobody else weighed in pro or con, 
> so I put them back.  I did object that "U+00B4 is not even an 
> apostrophe," but ultimately I considered my role to be one of 
> editing the initial registry draft, reflecting the will of 
> the list, not imposing my preferences if list consensus did 
> not seem to support them.
> 
> > It is the codes (Nkoo, nqo) that are normative, not the 
> descriptions.
> 
> The choice was between being (or appearing to be) arbitrary 
> on our own, or accepting the arbitrariness of others.  We had 
> recently taken a good deal of criticism for not justifying 
> some of the decisions we'd made.
> 
> > Gwich'in should be changed to Gwich&#x02BC;in, surely.
> 
> Then this should be discussed here.  Please, list members, if 
> you have a view on this, speak up within the next two weeks.
> 
> > APOSTROPHE and RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK are a well-known 
> > typographical pairing and I don't suppose we need to have both.
> 
> Indeed, my original motivation was to avoid "having both" for 
> N'Ko, one for the script and the other for the language.
> 
> We should focus here on Richard's suggestion to have two 
> Descriptions, one with the straight apostrophe and one with 
> the curly one.  I don't agree and apparently Michael doesn't 
> either.  Do we need to restart the two-week review period?
> 
> We can always revisit any or all of the Description fields at 
> any time.
> 
> Apparently there is no debate on the Suppress-Script field for N'Ko.
> 
> --
> Doug Ewell
> Fullerton, California, USA
> http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
> 
> 
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