Identification of Plain Language texts by new ISO 3166 code

Name: Geert Freyhoff
Email: geert@oneworld.expert
Affiliation: Inclusion Europe (www.inclusion-europe.org)
Document: W2
Item Number: Guideline 3.1: Make text content readable and understandable
Part of Item: 
Comment Type: technical
Summary of Issue: Identification of Plain Language texts by new ISO 3166 code
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
For this purpose, Inclusion Europe has requested the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency to consider reserving the code “EL” for Easy Language. EL is currently not assigned by the Agency. In combination with any language code of ISO639, texts could be marked up like “en-EL”, “de-EL” or “fr-EL” in any existing language.

Users who need plain language versions of texts then could easily access only easy-to- read web pages in their search results. Inclusion Europe has indeed also considered other possibilities to achieve this desired result. However, they would always need specific solutions and coding and not be a mainstream solution. What is needed is a qualifyer for the ISO639 language codes that identifies a specific variety of these languages, in parallel to the -UK or -US code of ISO3166.

Proposed Change:
Success Criterion 3.1.X Plain language identification
(Level A)

If a site contains any pages or summaries in plain language, each plain language passage in the content can be programmatically determined except for proper names, technical terms, words of indeterminate language, and words or phrases that have become part of the vernacular of the immediately surrounding text.

Received on Friday, 31 March 2017 09:51:30 UTC