options for RDF language-tagged literals

I don't remember how much you've heard of this idea of merging RDF's
language-tagged literals into datatype literals.  The idea RIF-WG and
OWL-WG are working with is a kind of hack of inventing a datatype whose
lexical space contains a string with an "@" and a language tag appended.
So:

    "chat@fr"^^rif:text  == "chat"@fr

As I say, it's a sort of a hack, but it works for getting RDF down to
having just one kind of literal, which is a big win for folks building
semantics around it, eg RIF and OWL.    (Maybe some distinction still
needs to be kept between "foo" and "foo"^^xs:string.  I'm fuzzy on that
issue.) 

Axel Polleres just had another suggestion, though, which is:

    "chat"^^lang:fr   == "chat"@fr

which really seems a lot better.  It also seems like something RDF Core
would have considered.  (Along with "chat"^lang:fr, I imagine.)   Can
you remember any of why it was not chosen?   If you don't, I guess I'll
ask Brian and Graham next -- from the minutes I see, they seem to be the
most interested in the subject.

       -- Sandro