Re: plain/simple/easy language variant subtag

I presume the simple web page would be at a different URL than the other — so having the simple language tag would not help those who landed on the original page.  Or are you thinking of another arrangement. 

MOSTLY I have seen language tags used to identify the language not the language level.   And it is used for accurate presentation or pronunciation.  What did you see as the purpose of the tag for language level? 



What I have seen done  with simple language pages - is to either 
provide a link off of the usual landing page  - to the simpler version of the page. 
provide a simple version or summary of the page - on the page itself  (where the page is informational rather than transactional) 

This topic is of great interest to me — so I am interested in your, and anyone else’s ideas on this. 


 It is a tough problem - including because (after you get rid of any unnecessary complexity or complex language on the page) making the page or the language simpler usually involves losing some information.  So it is desirable to simplify it in stages  - so that people of all levels can understand it — but those who can understand more lose less information.    There is no language that is plain enough for all. 

What I really wish for is a translation program  that can translate between language levels WITHIN a language - rather than between them - so that everyone can get things explained to them in a form they can individually understand.      So a tool that can start high and the be turned down til someone can understand — and then turned back up so they can understand more as the move up  (with supports to help them)  would give each person maximal access -  and the ability to learn more by getting the basic idea and then having it elaborated - if and as they wish.   

But I fear it will be awhile before we have that.      (although some say I should fear that machine understanding of language will come sooner than we like… ) 

gregg

----------------------------------
Gregg Vanderheiden
gregg@raisingthefloor.org




> On Sep 14, 2015, at 2:03 PM, Tobias Bengfort <tobias.bengfort@posteo.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On 14/09/15 08:15, Tobias Bengfort wrote:
>> In WCAG 2.0, I found the following passage:
>> 
>> When text requires reading ability more advanced than [...], 
>> supplemental content, or a version that does not require reading 
>> ability more advanced than [...], is available.
>> 
>> - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#meaning-supplements
>> 
>> This seemed to require something like I wanted to do. The way I
>> would go about implementing it would be to add a link tag like this:
>> 
>> <link href="..." hreflang="de-plain" rel="alternate" />
>> 
>> However, the language tag "de-plain" does not exist.
> 
> Update on this:
> 
> On 14/09/15 10:14, Felix Sasaki wrote:
>> I discussed a bit with W3C colleagues working in this area and indeed
>> there is no push from this area to have this tag, due to the
>> difficulty to define it properly in relation to accessibility.
> 
> - http://article.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.languages/10832
> 
> So if W3C does not have interest in a simple language subtag, how should
> we do simple language variants of websites then?
> 
> tobias
> 
> 
>