[i18n-discuss] RDF URIs for language tags and / or language subtags (#13)

fsasaki has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/i18n-discuss:

== RDF URIs for language tags and / or language subtags ==
Over the years, the RDF community has developed several concrete sets of URIs for identifying languages. Examples:

- Lexvo http://www.lexvo.org/
- Glottlog https://glottolog.org/glottolog/language

The URIs in these sets are based on ISO 639 , often extended with further URIs e.g. to identify language (variants) that are not part of 639, e.g. underressourced or historic languages.

There are various groups that provide such URIs or the underlying values, e.g. the two efforts mentioned above, or the library of congress.

Some arguments for providing URIs for language (sub) tags, taken from this thread:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-ontolex/2020Apr/0006.html

- URIs allow to use the forehand mentioned languages that are not part of the BCP 47 sub tag registry
- URIs allow to add information to each (sub)tag easily in a de-centralized manner. This is not possible with the sub tag registry.

Some open questions:
- Is there a need to provide validation of sub tag combinations, if URIs are provided?

The above is just a summary of what I read from the thread. Below is an observation.

The RDF community "likes" to provide information as URIs - that is a "selling point" of RDF itself. At the moment, the URI "providers" for language information are scattered across organizations and research groups. Also, there are open questions like the validation aspect of language tags - which are solved in BPC 47, but not in the URI version(s) of language tags.
A lot of this discussion has to do with understanding about 

- what can be done with BCP 47 already
- how to get "your subtag" into the BCP 47 registry
- what use cases cannot be covered by BCP 47, see the "adding information" requirement mentioned above

Since the RDF community does not have one accepted provider of URIs, it is hard to have the right stakeholders on the table.

A next step for the BCP 47 community could be to fill a gap: provide URIs for the entries of the language sub tag registry. In that way, more understanding of BCP 47 could be brought to the RDF community, and W3C and / or IETF could be recognized as the proper stakeholder for this task.

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/i18n-discuss/issues/13 using your GitHub account

Received on Thursday, 16 April 2020 11:49:31 UTC