[ink] i18n LC comment: encoding="ISO639"

Comment from the i18n review of:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-InkML-20061023/

Comment 3
At http://www.w3.org/International/reviews/0612-inkML/
Editorial/substantive: S
Owner: RI

Location in reviewed document:
6.3.1 Annotation element

Comment: 
The description of the encoding attribute and the example a little further down both refer to ISO 639 as a potential source of codes for language values.


We strongly recommend that this be replaced with references to the IETF's BCP 47 [http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/bcp/bcp47.txt], which is the current standard for language tags, and should be used for such values. If people use ISO639 to derive these tags they will be severely limiting their ability to express language,and will encounter issues about which of the ISO 639 codes should be used for a given language when multiple codes exist. 


BCP 47 was created to resolve these issues. For more information see
Language tags in HTML and XML [http://www.w3.org/International/articles/language-tags/]


The text lower down:


"The language specification may be made using any of the language identifiers specified in ISO 639, using 2-letter codes,3-letter codes, or country names."


is just completely wrong.


ISO 639 does not describe country codes (ISO 3166 does). Also, as mentioned above, it is a recipe for confusion to say thatpeople can use both 2- or 3-letter codes where both are available for a given language, which is what is implied in the text. I'm beginning tosuspect that you meant RFC 4646 all along, which is part of BCP 47, and which clarifies all this.

Received on Tuesday, 9 January 2007 17:12:39 UTC