Subject: Re: [Ietf-languages] Record and proposed registration form for 'gallo' variant

From: Michael Everson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 00:30:56 +0100

Is there any standardized(ish) text to tag with this? A description saying that something exists isn’t really enough.

> On 26 Jun 2021, at 20:42, Doug Ewell <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Here are the proposed record and registration form for the Gallo dialect, which I created from information provided by Rembert Eufe.
> 
> If this subtag is approved, the correct way to tag content in Gallo will be with the tag "fr-gallo".
> 
> Please note carefully that the sole purpose of this action, as for all BCP 47 subtag registrations, is to allow Gallo content to be identified for searching and filtering purposes using an industry-standard coding system.
> 
> The review period for this request runs through Saturday, July 10, 2021.
> 
> ---
> 
> LANGUAGE SUBTAG MODIFICATION
> File-Date: 2021-xx-xx
> %%
> Type: language
> Subtag: gallo
> Description: Gallo
> Added: 2021-xx-xx
> Prefix: fr
> %%
> ---
> 
> LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM
> 
> 1. Name of requester: Rembert Eufe
> 2. E-mail address of requester: rembert.eufe at uni-tuebingen.de
> 
> 3. Record Requested:
> 
> Type: variant
> Subtag: gallo
> Description: Gallo
> Prefix: fr
> 
> 4. Intended meaning of the subtag:
> 
> This subtag denotes the Gallo language, a member of the family of
> langues-d'oïl which also includes Standard French.
> 
> Gallo is spoken in parts of western France (Haute-Bretagne, Normandie,
> and Maine), generally east of the region where Breton is widely spoken.
> 
> Like many minority languages of France, the use of Gallo has been
> discouraged since the French Revolution in favor of Standard French.
> 
> 5. Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
> 
> Smith, John Charles (2016): "French and northern Gallo-Romance", in
> Ledgeway, Adam / Maiden, Martin (edd.): The Oxford Guide to the Romance
> Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 292-318,
> DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.003.0018.
> 
> • In this article, Gallo is mentioned several times as one of the
>  Langue-d'Oïl dialects. Cf. also the map on p. 293 which coincides with
>  the maps of Northern Gallo-Romance I am used to finding in
>  introductory works on Romance languages or French.
> 
> Chauveau, Jean-Paul (1984): Le Gallo: une présentation. Brest:
> Université de la Bretagne Occidentale.
> 
> 
> --
> Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf-languages mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

---

From: Hugh Paterson III <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2021 20:14:31 -0400

By “texts” do you mean written texts or audio files?

On Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 7:31 PM Michael Everson <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> Is there any standardized(ish) text to tag with this? A description saying
> that something exists isn’t really enough.
>
> > Here are the proposed record and registration form for the Gallo
> dialect, which I created from information provided by Rembert Eufe.
> >
> > Please note carefully that the sole purpose of this action, as for all
> BCP 47 subtag registrations, is to allow Gallo content to be identified for
> searching and filtering purposes using an industry-standard coding system.
> >
-- 
All the best,
-Hugh

Sent from my iPhone
Paris, France

---

From: Rembert Eufe <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 17:22:28 +0200

Dear colleagues,

I've found some citations in Gallo in transcripts of debates on  
language policy in the French parliament (Assemblée Nationale), e.g.  
https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/cri/2013-2014/20140140.asp from  
2014 or  
https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/15/comptes-rendus/seance/session-ordinaire-de-2019-2020/deuxieme-seance-du-jeudi-13-fevrier-2020 from 2020. I just need a tag for the annotation of these records, for which "fr-gallo" would be perfect (so thank you for your  
help!).

Nevertheless, our discussion might be an occasion for reconsidering  
the whole langues-d'oil-group (cf.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_d%27o%C3%AFl#O%C3%AFl_dialects).  
Walloon, for example, has an ISO 639-1 code (wa; besides ISO 639-2 and  
-3 wln), whereas Picard and Norman have ISO 639-3-tags (pcd and nrf,  
respectively), and Lorrain and Eastern Champenois have none. Although  
I admit that it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie...

Yours,

Rembert Eufe

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 09:34:52 -0600

Michael Everson wrote:

> Is there any standardized(ish) text to tag with this? A description
> saying that something exists isn’t really enough.

Should we interpret this as an extension of the review period, to allow Rembert Eufe to cite specific content that needs this tag? It doesn't sound like an approval.

On June 20, Rembert wrote:

> I personally would be glad just to have an ISO-Code for it for my
> corpus annotation

Ignoring the red-herring reference to "ISO-Code," this did imply to me that Rembert does have some Gallo content that would benefit from being tagged as such.

That said, on June 26 I wrote:

> BCP 47 subtag registrations, is to allow Gallo content to be
> identified for searching and filtering purposes using an industry-
> standard coding system.

which expressed my concern that the intent of the proposal might be to document the variety or give it "status," not to identify content in it or enable searching for that content. I personally gave Rembert the benefit of the doubt here. Some past proposals have been more shameless than this about trying to use ISO 639 or BCP 47 to bestow official status on a language or dialect.

Whenever I think of the criterion "do you actually have content in language/dialect/script/variety X that needs this tag?", I recall the RFC 3066 registration for Boontling (en-boont) in 2003. I don't know, but tend to doubt, whether John Cowan had new content in Boontling, beyond the published book, that he wanted to tag, or whether there was a real-world problem with searching for Boontling text that this tag solved. I also don't know if we have, should have, or expect to have different criteria from those prevalent in 2003.

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 12:21:13 -0600

Rembert Eufe wrote:

> https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/15/comptes-rendus/seance/session-ordinaire-de-2019-2020/deuxieme-seance-du-jeudi-13-fevrier-2020
> from 2020. I just need a tag for the annotation of these records, for
> which "fr-gallo" would be perfect (so thank you for your help!).

Both of these references look like they *discuss* Gallo, but are *written* in standard French. You wouldn't use a Gallo language tag to tag material like this. Do you have references to material *in* Gallo (written or spoken) that would benefit from being tagged?

> I admit that it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie...

No existing ISO 639 coding will be restructured to code language or dialects that are part of a family in a parallel way. Specifically, Walloon will not have its 639-1 code withdrawn, nor will Picard and Norman have 639-1 codes added, nor will Lorrain and Eastern Champenois (or Gallo) be assigned ISO 639 codes at all, simply to achieve this objective. Stability in coding is far more important here than trying to reflect language relationships.

Perhaps discussion of the 'gallo' subtag should be extended for another 2-week review period (which would end 2021-07-31 AoE) to ensure that its purpose and usage is adequately understood.

---

From: Luc Pardon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 22:10:49 +0200

> From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
> Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 12:21:13 -0600

>Both of these references look like they *discuss* Gallo, but are
>*written* in standard French. You wouldn't use a Gallo language tag to
>tag material like this. Do you have references to material *in* Gallo
>(written or spoken) that would benefit from being tagged?

Actually, his first reference *does* include an 8-sentence citation
written in Gallo (just after the fourth occurrence of the word "gallo"
in the page).

The page is tagged as "lang=fr" at the top level, but a French spell
checker would obviously choke if you'd feed it that citation.

So a "fr-gallo" tag for that fragment would indeed be in order here.

Now, are these 8 lines sufficient to warrant a new (sub)tag? I.e.
should we grant a request for 8 lines?

As a technician, I'd say yes, no doubt. No "taggable thing" (text,
audio, ...) should have go untagged.

In other words: every piece of taggable context must have an
appropriate tag available.

The only alternative (to approval) is that we provide the requester
with an alternative, i.e point him to an existing (sub)tag that would do
the job equally well.

Sure, we could tell him to forget about tagging, but I'd like to think
that this is not an option, at least not on this list <g>.

And if 8 lines are not enough, then BCP47 should state how many are
needed as a minimum. Since it does not, it follows that, conceptually,
one single line would do.

Of course, the concept of "every piece of taggable context" is not to be
open-ended. Vanity tags, computer languages etc. need not apply. But
that does not seem to be the case here.

There are other safeguards to defend the registry against "pollution",
but it seems that those hurdles have been cleared in the case of
"Gallo".

The only remaining "objection" (or "reflection") I seem to have seen is
Michael's question:

> Is there any standardized(ish) text to tag with this?

The answer, it seems, is "yes, there is".

Luc

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2021 14:40:51 -0600

> So a "fr-gallo" tag for that fragment would indeed be in order here.

Whoops, I completely missed that. I shouldn't have, even though it's a very long page overwhelmingly in French, because I did search for "gall" and the passage would have appeared on my screen.

So yes, there's some text. And I agree that there should be no imposed limit to how small a taggable sample could be. Practicality dictates that most people won't tag a single isolated word—that would be <span lang="fr">très</span> cumbersome—but it should still be possible.

I still have my concerns that the purpose and correct use of this subtag is understood by all, but that shouldn't hold up the request.

So we're back to waiting to see whether Michael is satisfied with Rembert's samples and will approve the subtag.

---

From: Rembert Eufe <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2021 16:55:55 +0200

Dear Doug Ewell,

here's a passage in Gallo from the first of the two debates (after an  
introducing line in French):

Puisqu’il me reste du temps, je vais vous lire quelques lignes d’une  
professeur agrégée de lettres à l’université de Rennes 2. Ainsi, vous  
verrez ce qu’est le gallo, madame la ministre.
« Cez nous j’caousons pas comme âillous
J’ons des mots doux ou picotous
Qui guezonnent ou qui guerzillonnent
Ou qui subèlent comme les jieunes mèlles
J’ons des mots à délier le pillot
Qui saoutent des djedaïnes en sabots
D’aoutres qui d’varinent, qui mandolinent
Comme la faeuilletline dans la rabine » (Applaudissements sur les  
bancs du groupe UDI et sur plusieurs bancs du groupe SRC.)
M. Jean-Jacques Urvoas, rapporteur. Bravo !

And here's one from the second debate (it starts after "dans cette" at  
the end of the utterance):

M. Paul Molac, rapporteur. En réponse à M. Peu, je constate, chers  
collègues, que vous êtes tous d’accord – à l’exception, peut-être, de  
la France insoumise – pour soutenir les langues régionales. J’insiste  
encore une fois sur la question de l’enseignement, qui me paraît  
particulièrement importante. Je connais évidemment votre engagement  
sur la question, monsieur Le Fur. M. Thierry Benoit est là également  
dans cette assembié et je seu bin qu’i prech bin galo o mê des fês, tu  
veilhle bin …

The site of the Institut du Gallo has a version in it:  
https://institutdugalo.bzh/go/accueil-galo/. There are some remarks on  
literature in Gallo in the wikipedia-article under chapter 7:  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallo_language, but the French version  
of this article is more informative:  
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallo .

Yours,

Rembert Eufe

Zitat von Doug Ewell <[email-masked]>:

> *written* in standard French. You wouldn't use a Gallo language tag  
> to tag material like this. Do you have references to material *in*  
> Gallo (written or spoken) that would benefit from being tagged?
>
> No existing ISO 639 coding will be restructured to code language or  
> dialects that are part of a family in a parallel way. Specifically,  
> Walloon will not have its 639-1 code withdrawn, nor will Picard and  
> Norman have 639-1 codes added, nor will Lorrain and Eastern  
> Champenois (or Gallo) be assigned ISO 639 codes at all, simply to  
> achieve this objective. Stability in coding is far more important  
> here than trying to reflect language relationships.
>
> Perhaps discussion of the 'gallo' subtag should be extended for  
> another 2-week review period (which would end 2021-07-31 AoE) to  
> ensure that its purpose and usage is adequately understood.
>
> --

---

From: Luc Pardon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2021 10:18:16 +0200

Doug Ewell wrote:

>Practicality dictates that most people won't tag a single isolated
>word—that would be <span lang="fr">très</span> cumbersome—but it
>should still be possible.

Yes, yes and yes.

Yes #1, most people won't tag language transitions within a document,
but that is unfortunate for e.g. a blind person who has to rely on a
screen reader to access it.

A French sentence, rendered by an English text-to-speech engine,
becomes incomprehensible gibberish. If you have ever heard that in
practice, it makes you a firm believer in the importance of fine-grained
tagging.

Yes #2, one reason (besides ignorance or indifference) for not tagging
short fragments is that it is too cumbersome.

It need not be. Most documents (gut feeling, no statistics) would have
one primary language (say English), with fragments in one other language
embedded in it (say French).

Once the document properties are set up accordingly, the fragments could
be marked as "French" with a single click, as easily as it is to mark
things as "bold" or "italic". 

And with a little help from our friend the spellchecker, it could be
even easier. To "get rid" of a "misspelled word" like "très", most
people will click the "ignore" button (or equivalent). If there
was a "(Don't be silly, it's) French" button as an alternative, you'd
get the language tagging essentially for free.

Yes #3, it should be possible (to tag down to word level), and we should
do our part to make it possible.

As the saying goes: if you want to make the world a better place, you
have to start with yourself.

Keeping in mind what the I and E in "IETF" stand for, that loosely
translates as: if we want to make the Internet a better place (for the
blind in particular), we have to provide the tags that software
engineers need for the next step.

The above musings may not be immediately relevant for the Gallo
case, but it may help to see things in perspective.

And it gave me the opportunity to once again bring up the use of tagging
for screen reader software. Spellcheckers and search engines are
mentioned often enough, but text-to-speech is usually overlooked.

I suppose it would be different if the majority of the world population
were blind, and a minority sighted, instead of the other way around ...

Luc

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2021 09:15:02 -0400

> were blind, and a minority sighted, instead of the other way around ...

<span lang="fr">Au pays des aveugles, le borgne est fou.</span>