- From: John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
- Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:41:30 -0500
- To: Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>
- Cc: www-international@w3.org, ietf-languages@alvestrand.no
Martin Duerst scripsit:
> I think whether a language is official or not in a certain country
> is not really relevant to whether to use the country designation or
> not. Whether the forms in each of the countries are actually
> significantly divergent (e.g. different grammar, orthography,
> different vocabulary) is what's relevant. Thus just taking
> the Ethnologue as a base doesn't give the right result.
I agree in principle, but...
It's a start. From the publication of RFC 1766 until now, no one
has ever even *tried* to solve this problem. The list is a first
draft, is open to additions and deletions from those with knowledge,
and is not intended to ever be definitive, just useful.
> Also, any list, when published, should avoid the impression that
> if it contains a two-part language code, that language always
> has to be used with a two-part code. For each language affected
> (e.g. en), there sure is a large number of examples where the
> difference doesn't matter, and in that case, using more than
> the language itself as a label would be wrong.
Agreed.
--
The man that wanders far jcowan@reutershealth.com
from the walking tree http://www.reutershealth.com
--first line of a non-existent poem by: John Cowan
Received on Tuesday, 14 December 2004 02:42:00 UTC