Re: 2 many language tags for Norwegian

John Cowan 2008-04-26 17.22:
> Leif Halvard Silli scripsit:
>
> > Adding more tags would be bad, you said. I wish they had had the wisdom 
> > to say so when they proposed nb and nn, as we allready had no-nyn and 
> > no-bok.
>
> From the viewpoint of 639-1, which is primarily that of librarians and
> bibliographers, having separate codes for nn and nb *is* sensible.
>   

It is especially sensible if the library is for Norwegians. Norwegian 
libraries only use the tags 'Nynorsk' and 'Bokmål'.

> Again, it's a matter of adapting a not-quite-suitable standard for
> IETF language tagging rather than taking on the immense work and
> resulting flame wars from doing our own.
>   

In theory, that's the matter. But the matter in this particular case, is 
that - apparently - some libraries maps thing as both Nynorsk, Bokmål 
and Norwegian.

Just so it is noted: If a Norwegian user finds a book that is tagged as 
"Norwegian", then the user can only guess what it means. No Norwegian 
user will think that such a book has to be Bokmål, for instance.

Norwegians almost never searches for books which is spesificly Bokmål or 
Nynorsk. We look for books in our language - Norwegian. And take the 
Bokmål/Nynorsk tag as an added plus or minus. If you want to know what 
books are available in Norwegian, you should include both Bokmål and 
Nynorsk in the search. That is: You should search for Norwegian, and get 
both Bokmål and Nynorsk. And to further understand: Both Bokmål and 
Nynorsk literature are reviewed in the same literary magazines.

The ISO 639-1 appears to not support the inclusion of both nn and nb 
under no. Unless the intention was that a Nynorsk book should have two 
tags, nn and no.

And if that was the case: Why not allow two language tags for Norwegian 
documents as well?
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 28 April 2008 00:59:20 UTC