Asmus> We need to separate a few issues here. 1) use and purpose
Asmus> of language identifiers vs. other types of tags 2)
Asmus> standardization of ids as such (.i.e which small integer
Asmus> means which language) 3) encoding of any language
Asmus> identifiers for use in a) plain text and b) other protocols
Asmus> We also need to distinguish between Unicode(R), the
Asmus> Consortium, and Unicode(tm) the Standard. The former may
Asmus> well take up issues 1-3. But not in form of inclusion into
Asmus> the latter, but as separate items, e.g. technical
Asmus> reports. [Only issue 3a) could even remotely become part of
Asmus> the standard, but that is a statement of scope, not of
Asmus> advisability.]
Well, I have certainly been guilty of equating the Consortium with the
Standard. Thanks for the prod. We do forget sometimes.
Asmus> One certainly does NOT want to assign Unicode code points
Asmus> directly as language tags as the first step. This just
Asmus> muddles everything. However, I believe the UTC should
Asmus> discuss this issue and consider whether it might be
Asmus> worthwhile to come up with a position regarding language
Asmus> identifiers (issue 1) from above), especially in what way
Asmus> the knowledge of text language would influence the
Asmus> _interpretation_ of a stream of Unicode encoded text.
Asmus> UTC could then review existing sources of language
Asmus> identifiers and recommend improvements, up to and including
Asmus> setting up its own list as last resort. None of this would
Asmus> mean that these are incorporated into the Unicode Standard
Asmus> as such.
This sounds like a reasonable proposition. What kind of input would
the UTC like from the Unicode community to consider starting a
discussion? Never having been involved in something like this, I need
to ask :-)
Asmus> Only if, (and that's a big if) there is a compelling need
Asmus> to create yet another form of mark-up syntax, could a
Asmus> data-stream format be part of the discussion. I tend to
Asmus> think that the existence of a lot of mark-up formats would
Asmus> mean that another one is superfluous, but am willing to see
Asmus> a serious discssion.
We would like to weigh in *against* creating another markup syntax.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
mleisher@crl.nmsu.edu
Mark Leisher "The trick is not gaining the knowledge,
Computing Research Lab but surviving the lessons."
New Mexico State University -- "Svaha," Charles de Lint
Box 30001, Dept. 3CRL
Las Cruces, NM 88003
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:30 EDT