Subject: Re: [Ltru] Extended language subtags

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 07:55:38 -0700

Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft dot com> wrote:

> I think you need to decide: are we discussing extended language 
> subtags, or the tagging of signed languages? Those are two different 
> topics, and I think you're discussing the latter.

I was trying to discuss both, combining them into one post on the basis 
that sign languages might use the "sgn plus extlang" syntax.  Probably 
the Subject line should have been clearer.

> If we were to encode the 639-3 IDs for signed languages as extended 
> language subtags with a prefix of "sgn", that would be an ad-hoc 
> exception to the otherwise-applicable principle that every extended 
> language subtag has a macrolanguage mapping to its designated prefix.

It would be an exception.  I don't know if it would be "ad-hoc" in the 
sense I'm thinking: it would be a stated exception for all sign 
languages, not case-by-case.

> My inclination has always been to treat signed languages like any 
> other language, meaning that we use their 639-3 IDs as primary 
> language subtags. If Michael and the DAC want some way to indicate 
> that content is in Sign Writing, the appropriate way to deal with that 
> is to create a script ID in 15924 and use that -- i.e. tags like 
> "ase-sgnw".

(I'm glad the discussion is beginning; that was my goal.)

The suggestion to treat them differently was based on the premise that 
sign languages are inherently different from "traditional" spoken and 
written languages -- at least from the perspective of data stored on 
computers, which is what RFC 3066bis/ter langtags are for.  This may not 
be a premise everyone can agree on, and it wasn't necessarily mine. 
It's also related to the question of how signed spoken languages should 
be indicated; last time we had that discussion, the results were 
inconclusive in the extreme.

> (I find it odd that Michael saw that 15924 IDs were added for scripts 
> that are long dead but for all his supposed interest in signed 
> languages and Sign Writing there isn't an ISO 15924 ID for a single 
> writing system used in relation to signed languages.)

I have no inside knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a 15924 
code element for Sutton in the future.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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