Re: How to language tag language tags?

Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> If I wanted to create a HTML version of the language subtag registry,
> then I would tag the entire registry with lang="en" (<html lang="en">),

That’s fine because the keywords (“Type”, “Subtag”, “Description”, 
“Added”) and some values (“language”, language description) are in 
English. Non-English descriptions should be tagged as such.

> while each entr in the registry perhaps could look like this:

The whole registry is a list which makes 'ol' the appropriate HTML 
element (ordered because alphabetically sorted; you might use 'ul' if 
you like).

Each entry is a 'li' that contains key–value pairs, i.e. a description 
list 'dl'.

> Question: Do you agree with the choice of language tag for the<dfn>
> element around the very language tag?

Yes for the language tag; I’m not sure about the 'dfn' element. 'code' 
would be appropriate, with @class="bcp47" or @data-language="bcp47" if 
you like to describe it futher. Maybe both elements.

I suggest this mark-up:

<html lang="en" …>
⋮
<ol>
   ⋮
   <li>
     <dl>
       <dt>Type</dt>
         <dd>language</dd>
       <dt>Subtag</dt>
         <dd><dfn><code class="bcp47" lang="zxx">aa</code></dfn></dd>
       <dt>Description</dt>
         <dd>Afar</dd>
       <dt>Added</dt>
          <dd>2005-10-16</dd>
     </dl>
   </li>
   ⋮
   <li>
     <dl>
       <dt>Type</dt>
         <dd>language</dd>
       <dt>Subtag</dt>
         <dd><dfn><code class="bcp47" lang="zxx">fss</code></dfn></dd>
       <dt>Description</dt>
         <dd>Finland-Swedish Sign Language</dd>
         <dd lang="sv">finlandssvenskt teckenspråk</dd>
         <dd lang="fi">suomenruotsalainen viittomakieli</dd>
       <dt>Added</dt>
         <dd>2009-07-29</dd>
     </dl>
   </li>
   ⋮
</ol>

Lines and colons per stylesheet:

li { border-bottom: 1px solid }
dt::after { content: ":" }

Cheers,
Gunnar

Received on Friday, 6 January 2012 08:59:00 UTC