Some of what you mentioned are relevant to the general topic in a very
broad sense, but not relevant to the focus of the conversation we're having
here; e.g. saving space in package design, replacing bullet separators,
etc. Although not relevant to the conversation, still as an i18n
practitioner, I'd like to see them in a document with some figures and some
references. See this[1] as an exquisite example.
> These uses are on fact very old, before standardisation of language codes
> and they have notre disappeared and will likely not in any expected short
> time frame.
Is there an example of a multilingual document pre-dating ISO/TC 37 and
ISO/R 639 which uses flags to distinguish text in different languages?
Most people cannot identify standard language codes correctly but recognize
> the flag commonly used to designate their language.
[...]
Even if country flags are not culturally neutral for those languages they
> are very often sufficient for the few listed languages.
I agree with what you're saying about language codes being sometimes
obscure to common user. I also agree with what you said yesterday in the
other thread about flags not being good to visually represent languages:
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 8:15 PM, Philippe Verdy <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> But my opinion is that "flags" (even ifshowing them generically) are not
> the cood concept for languages
All said and done, it seems to me there are always better ways to represent
languages in software UIs. A very large scale and illustrative example is
Wikimedia Foundation's Universal Language Selector[2]. It is used on most
WMF projects to switch between hundreds of languages and it doesn't use
neither flags nor language codes in its UI. See the design notes[3].
[1]: http://www.w3.org/TR/jlreq/
[2]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector
[3]:
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Universal_Language_Selector/Interaction_Design_Framework#Iconography_to_represent_languages
↪ Shervin
On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 10:20 AM, Philippe Verdy <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> There are many examples and notably on home pages of a lot of commercial
> sites un their top bar and in startup selectors of many mobile apps or in
> popular games or on various including translation tools or catalogues of
> dictionnaires ans manu printed dictionbaries show these flags on their
> cover, including wellknown ones from famous brands such as Harraps or
> Larousse.
> Or on official sites of various tourism information offices and museums on
> their printed leaflets or on museums. They do not support all languages
> with accurate translations but are giving a visual choice or indicator of
> the language this way.
> Many physical products use these flags on their printed labels or boxes
> and embedded leaflets for listing used components or describe their use. As
> this saves space on the limited size of the label or box.
> Most people cannot identify standard language codes correctly but
> recognize the flag commonly used to designate their language.
> These icons also replace bullet separators for their visual impact, they
> are true symbols acting like ponctuation, but more visible si they allow
> saving newlines as well.
> Even if country flags are not culturally neutral for those languages they
> are very often sufficient for the few listed languages.
> And with the same frequency we see packagings showing country codes
> instead of language codes.
> When they realize that country flags are too much culturally/politically
> oriented they do not want tout show them will juste use region codes, more
> less decorated (not always standard ISO codes but like on car plates).
> These uses are on fact very old, before standardisation of language codes
> and they have notre disappeared and will likely not in any expected short
> time frame. Now with the internet available around the world, massively
> advertized and used daily in multiple times or activities, people know
> their country code but still not their langage code...
> Le 13 févr. 2015 18:42, "Shervin Afshar" <shervinafshar_at_gmail.com> a
> écrit :
>
> I'm neither proposing nor implying what should or should not be done or
>> whether Unicode can or can not interfere with anything anywhere. I'm just
>> curious about use of flags in language selectors or as visual language
>> identifier on websites which you wrote about.
>>
>> I know of some organizations that strictly avoid using flags altogether
>> to represent languages. Did you encounter that during your research?
>>
>> Also, do you have your research on this matter documented somewhere else
>> so I can refer my colleagues in i18n to it?
>>
>>
>> ↪ Shervin
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 9:13 AM, Philippe Verdy <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This is just experience of visiting sites commonly using these flags to
>>> represent (inappropriately) languages *visually*. And even if it is not the
>>> best way to represent languages, this is what happens (Unicode cannot
>>> interfer with the freedom of speech and the choice of authors if they
>>> prefer visual icons to plain words).
>>>
>>>
>>> 2015-02-13 16:37 GMT+01:00 Shervin Afshar <shervinafshar_at_gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 13, 2015 3:12 AM, "Philippe Verdy" <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > This is completely a non-issue with the Unicode standard itself.
>>>> There's an ample enough space to use various designs that match character
>>>> properties as well as user expectations *without* breaking the character
>>>> identity itself. So even if the US flag is often used for English, in
>>>> Britanic sites they will use the British flag. In the Republic of Ireland
>>>> they'll won't use the Irish flag for the English language (prefered for the
>>>> Irish language itself) and will unlikely use the British flag. In South
>>>> Africa or India to, they won't use their national flag for English
>>>> (multiple official languages there, and English is not even the preferred
>>>> language).
>>>>
>>>> Are these statements about use of flags for language selectors on
>>>> websites, based on some UX study, survey, or commonly accepted guideline,
>>>> or are they just speculations?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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Received on Fri Feb 13 2015 - 13:39:36 CST
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