- From: CE Whitehead <cewcathar@hotmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:58:14 -0500
- To: christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be, www-international@w3.org
Hi, I think the terms "natural language" and "natural language processing" have been around for a while in the computer world. So I am not particular myself as to which you use for what. Someone else mentioned that these terms might be defined. That might be best. --C. E. Whitehead cewcathar@hotmail.com > > >Hi, > >During a discussion on using "natural language" or "human language" in the >context of WCAG, I noticed that W3C I18N documents use either "natural >language" or just "language" [1]. For many linguists, "natural language" >has a relatively well-defined meaning: a natural langage is one that has >native speakers. I don't think that the I18N documents are meant to apply >only to languages with native speakers and exclude or ignore artificially >created human langages ("constructed languages" [1]) such as Esperanto, >Volapük, or Interlingua. On the other hand, I see no evidence that they >also apply to computer languages such as Fortran or Python, so I assume >these are not meant to be covered. So I wonder if the term "human language" >would be more appropriate in those documents. (I apologize in advance if >this issue has been discussed and resolved before; a Google search in the >archives did not bring up relevant threads). > >[1] Examples >* The following use the term "natural language": > - Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Languages in XHTML & >HTML Content > <http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/>; > - Tutorial: Creating (X)HTML Pages in Arabic & Hebrew > <http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/bidi-xhtml/> > (but only once at the end of the document); > - Best Practices for XML Internationalization > <http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-i18n-bp/> (just once); > - W3C I18N FAQ: Why use the language attribute? > <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-why>; > - W3C I18N FAQ: Two-letter or three-letter language codes > <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-2or3>. >* The following just use "language", not "natural language" or > "human language": > - Ruby Annotation <http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby/>; > - Unicode in XML and Other Markup Languages > <http://www.w3.org/TR/unicode-xml/>; > - Authoring Techniques for XHTML & HTML Internationalization: Handling >Bidirectional Text 1.0 > <http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-bidi/>; > - Authoring Techniques for XHTML & HTML Internationalization: Characters >and Encodings 1.0 > <http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-char/>; > - FAQ: Monolingual vs. multilingual Web sites > <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-mono-multilingual>; > - Setting the HTTP charset parameter > <http://www.w3.org/International/O-HTTP-charset>; > - FAQ: Multilingual Forms > <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-forms-utf-8>; > - FAQ: Non-English tags > <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-non-eng-tags>; > - FAQ: HTTP and meta for language information > <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-http-and-lang>; > - Language tags in HTML and XML > ><http://www.w3.org/International/articles/language-tags/Overview.en.php>. >Of course, this is just a sample, not an exhaustive list. >(A Google search for "human language" in http://www.w3.org/International/ >returns exactly three results.) > >Best regards, > >Christophe > > >-- >Christophe Strobbe >K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group on >Document Architectures >Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 - 3001 Leuven-Heverlee - BELGIUM >tel: +32 16 32 85 51 >http://www.docarch.be/ > > >Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm > > _________________________________________________________________ >From predictions to trailers, check out the MSN Entertainment Guide to the Academy Awards® http://movies.msn.com/movies/oscars2007/?icid=ncoscartagline1
Received on Monday, 12 February 2007 20:58:24 UTC