Re: browser language tags

Hello André,

On 2009/05/06 22:29, André (小山) Schappo wrote:
>
> There is significant difference between browsers in the set of language
> tags available for user selection. It would be of benefit if there were
> an agreed set of language tags that were incorporated into all browsers.
> Perhaps some sort of registration system similar to
> <http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry> except for
> fully formed language tags instead of subtags.

Who would be allowed to register there? How could we force browser 
vendors to follow this registry?


> This would pave the way for interesting applications of language tags in
> browsers.
>
> eg
>
> Take a youtube like site (lets call it signtube) that also has a signed
> language version of a video that is shown in parallel. Now take the
> language subtag:
>
> Type: language
> Subtag: sgn
> Description: Sign Languages
>
> Different regions have different sign languages.
>
> Then register the language tags
>
> sgn-GB (British Sign Language)
> sgn-JP (Japanese Sign Language)
> sgn-CN (Chinese Sign Language)
> ...etc...

Please note that draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis deprecates codes such as sgn-GB 
in favor of ISO 639-3 three-letter codes (gss for sgn-GB).

> Then, for example, if I had my browser set to sgn-JP I would see the
> video on signtube signed in Japanese Sign Language.

Why would this be helped by having an accepted list of languages for the 
browsers? Even without that, you can set your browser's preference to 
include jsl (sgn-JP), and if that's available on signtube, it can easily 
be served. The big obstacle to that is not an uniform list in the 
browser, but the cost of translation.

Regards,    Martin.

> André Schappo
> http://国际化域名.lboro.ac.uk/
>

-- 
#-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp   mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp

Received on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 08:36:40 UTC