Re: Language X within scope of language Y

Just to point this out as someone that does a bit of linguistics,
there is a widespread phenoumena called "inclusions" which makes
saying that one word is either "English" or "German" a bit suspect.
Such as the use of the word "Internet" in German. Even often when words 
are invented in foreign languages for technical concepts, English may 
creep in and overplant the new word. In German this has become so bad it's 
called "Denglish" - see:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1395083,00.html

There are event XML-based tools to detect inclusions:
www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/seer/papers/PAPILLON04.pdf

Fundamentally, it's probably *fine* for standards to demand that a word
have a single language, since most documents are written *as a whole* in a 
primary language. However, having the capability to mark a section of text 
in mutliple langauges may actually be quite sensible, and a better 
reflection of the reality of language use.

 				-harry


On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Mark Davis wrote:

>
> Also, because words get adopted over time, and become "more and more"
> considered a natural part of the language. Is "conversation" English? Is
> "ambiance"? Is " façade"? Is "faux pas"? If you take the view that if they
> are found in common English dictionaries, then yes, they are. Each of them
> was originally from French, but now are part of English. On the other hand,
> "Vierwaldstätterseeschifffahrtsgesellschaft" is not (yet).
>
> ÿÿMark
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Constable" <petercon@microsoft.com>
> To: <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>; <www-international@w3.org>;
> <ietf-languages@iana.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 13:17
> Subject: RE: Language X within scope of language Y
>
>
>>> From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@reutershealth.com]
>>
>>
>>>> I'm not familiar with that work, but certainly "Das Kapital" is
>>>> German even if I refer to it in an English conversation; "Capital"
>>>> would be English. (/dæs kÿÿæpÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ/ would be German spoken with
>>>> an American English accent.)
>>>
>>> It's not clear what you refer to when you refer to it, though.  All the
>>> translations I have ever seen are entitled "Capital", so presumably when
>>> you refer to it, you refer to the ur-book which is language independent.
>>
>> The relevant issue you're hitting on is that titles can cross the line
> from a linguistic expression that happens to denote an object to become a
> *name*, names having a measure of language independence that general
> linguistic expressions typically do not have.
>>
>>
>> Peter Constable
>>
>
>
>

-- 
 				--harry

 	Harry Halpin
 	Informatics, University of Edinburgh
         http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin