RE: For review: Tagging text with no language

Sorry for piping up late on this issue.... 

I still question the practical applications of the "no linguistic content" 
semantic. I thought we had agreed that the most appropriate use of the 
"zxx" tag was to indicate that the association of a language with a piece 
of content is not applicable.  So if I'm classifying an instrumental 
musical work using a standard library cataloging system that is also used 
for lyrical works, I might indicate that the recording is "zxx"; a silent 
film might have a "zxx" audio track. This use of the zxx tag is not 
indicated in the text on the page. Should it be?

Second, I don't think the part number example on the page is useful if the 
intention is to code pages "so that applications such as voice browsers 
... can process that text." If we think about what behavior would be 
expected by a screen reader upon encountering a "zxx" tag, I would expect 
that it would ignore the text inside the tag -- just as it should with, 
say, binary junk. But clearly anyone trying to make sense of the content 
shown on this page would need to "read" those part numbers as well.  The 
same is true for programming code snippets that appear in technical 
tutorials. This is where I think there is a distinction between 
"non-applicable" and "non-linguistic" that is being ignored.

What purpose would your <span> tag in the example serve? While this may do 
the right thing for the spellchecker, this is not the right thing to do 
for a screen reader. 

I have always argued that "no linguistic content" is not appropriate for 
code or part numbers and I think recent examples show why I continue to 
think this is a problematic usage and that the "zxx" semantic should be 
"not applicable."

Regards,

Karen Broome
Metadata Systems Designer
Sony Pictures Entertainment
310.244.4384

www-international-request@w3.org wrote on 05/21/2007 11:51:35 AM:

> 
> Najib and Martin,
> 
> Thanks for your comments.  I had another go at the document.
> http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-no-language
> 
> RI
> 
> 
> ============
> Richard Ishida
> Internationalization Lead
> W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
> 
> http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/
> http://www.w3.org/International/
> http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/