RE: Traditional Chinese in RFC3066 bis

There is a well-defined fallback strategy.

'zh-TW' is not in the hierarchy of 'zh-Hant-TW'. If you previously used
'zh-TW' to mean 'zh-Hant', then you will have to retag your data if you want
the more up-to-date fallback. This doesn't invalidate your existing tag (it
is still valid and indicates what it did previously). It doesn't make the
existing tag less expressive. It gives newer options that allow
appropriately updated content to have richer, more accurate access to
language negotiation, content description, and so forth.

I don't have time for a full response just now. There is a potential
migration issue, given the interspersing of a subtag, but only because of
the de facto use of zh-XX to imply the writing system previously (which it
should not have done).

Addison

Addison P. Phillips
Director, Globalization Architecture
webMethods | Delivering Global Business Visibility
http://www.webMethods.com
Chair, W3C Internationalization (I18N) Working Group
Chair, W3C-I18N-WG, Web Services Task Force
http://www.w3.org/International

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tex Texin [mailto:tex@xencraft.com]
> Sent: mercredi 7 avril 2004 12:01
> To: Richard Ishida
> Cc: aphillips@webmethods.com; www-international@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Traditional Chinese in RFC3066 bis
>
>
> Unfortunately, language tags are used for more than language,
> which is why I
> raised the question.
>
> Also, the context was not just about the tag, but what is an appropriate
> migration strategy.
>
> If an application is using zh-TW already, is the recommendation
> to switch to
> zh-hant or to zh-hant-TW, or perhaps you need to use all 3 tags
> depending on
> the particular purpose of the tag within the application.
> I can see different answers based on whether I am tagging a resource,
> requesting a resource, performing transliteration or using a voice reader,
> choosing a date format, etc.
>
> Unfortunately without a well-defined fallback strategy that relates the 3
> components, it is difficult to know what the application will do
> if an inexact
> match occurs, making changes risky. (Perhaps also making not
> changing risky.)
>
> But I think there should be a recommendation so software can interoperate.
>
> Maybe we should bring this discussion to the lang list rather than here?
>
> (I had intended to discuss this with the authors of 3066bis and
> not a forum
> like this one. But it came up as a matter of course in the work
> of the w3c i18n
> GEO's tutorial on language tags)
> tex
>
>
>
> Richard Ishida wrote:
> > Hmm.  I tend to see it as somewhat orthogonal, which is why in
> the format I proposed way back I separated it out as, for
> example, "zh-TW/Hant" - ie. "<lang+dialect>/<script>" - which btw
> would also allow you to say "/Hant" (ie. 'I know it uses the
> Traditional Chinese script, but I don't know what language') as
> well as match easily with existing zh-TW.
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com
> Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
>
> XenCraft		            http://www.XenCraft.com
> Making e-Business Work Around the World
> -------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Wednesday, 7 April 2004 17:02:24 UTC