A proposed solution for descriptions (was: Re: ISO 639 - New item approved - N'Ko)

[Addison Phillips]

Michael wrote:
> 
> Pshaw. APOSTROPHE is a coding wierdness deriving from typewriter 
> technology. It may be useful as a delimiter to programmers. Correct 
> spelling and typography uses the traditional curly quote.

As a matter of historical fact, you're correct. However: the most common
legacy encodings do not include this character as a separate value and most
users are blissfully unaware of the difference. The fact that their software
regularly "corrects" apostrophes by converting them to single quotes
obscures this fact. Although this file was designed to be machine
processable, it is quite likely that a significant number of users will view
it directly, as a text file. Browsers and other software solutions will not
interpret the XML entities in this context, leading to the concerns voiced
on this list.

So... I move that we approve this record, which will satisfy both audiences:

> >
> > Type: language
> > Subtag: nqo
> > Description: N'Ko
> > Description: N’Ko
> > Suppress-Script: Nkoo
> > Added: 2006-xx-xx 

Addison

Addison Phillips
Internationalization Architect - Yahoo! Inc.

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.