- From: Elizabeth J. Pyatt <ejp10@psu.edu>
- Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 17:07:30 -0500
- To: "A. Vine" <andrea.vine@Sun.COM>
- Cc: www-international@w3.org
But now you are talking about differences in a script, not differences in a language. You can use either Simplified or Traditional Characters to write Mandarin Chinese (and Traditional can be used for Cantonese - I don't know about Simplified, per se, for Cantonese). Previously, the language codes have been used to encode both script and language. I was assuming the characters embedded would convey which script is being used. In some ways, a Chinese text could represent several languages depending on how it is formed. Are there script changes that happen to write the different Chinese dialects on an everyday basis? Elizabeth > > >At a minimum it's really helpful to know whether it's Simplified or >Traditional, because it may affect the font chosen for rendering >(take for example a situation where the machine config has a >Traditional-only font as a default and the text is in Simplified.) >But beyond rendering, if software is trying to pick text from a >language preference list, "zh" really messes us up. It's much more >generic than "en". From a matching perspective, we tend to assume >that "zh" really means "Simplified Chinese rendering of Mandarin as >used in the PRC", but that is not the intention of the "zh" >identifier. > >Andrea -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D. Instructional Designer Education Technology Services, TLT/ITS Penn State University ejp10@psu.edu, (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office) 210 Rider Building II 227 W. Beaver Avenue State College, PA 16801-4819 http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/psu http://tlt.psu.edu
Received on Tuesday, 14 December 2004 22:07:53 UTC