Subject: [Ltru] Re: Addition request: alsatian

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 11:33:19 -0800

I have no objection to this tag. However, it does seem to create the 
possibility (mentioned before) that the same dialect could be identified 
as gsw-FR (assuming there are no other gsw dialects in France). 

Is it simply up to the user to decide whether to use regional or variant 
tagging? Or should some guidelines be written to indicate a preference for 
variant tagging over regional tagging if both exist?

Regards,

Karen Broome

Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]> 
Sent by: [email-masked]
01/03/2008 02:24 AM

To
[email-masked]
cc

Subject
Re: Addition request: alsatian

Request in the body, for the MIME-impaired.

LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM

1. Name of requester: St&#xE9;phane Bortzmeyer

2. E-mail address of requester: [email-masked]

3. Record Requested: 

   Type: variant
   Subtag: alsatian
   Description: Alsatian variant of Alemannic
   Description: Els&#xE4;ssisch
   Prefix: gsw
   Comments: 

4. Intended meaning of the subtag: There is a distinct variety of
Alemannic spoken in Alsace. It is distinct from the language spoken in
Germany and Switzerland partly for political reasons, because Alsace
has been a french province for a long time.

5. Reference to published description
of the language (book or article):

    * (fr) "L'alsacien, deuxième langue régionale de France" Insee,
    Chiffres pour l'Alsace no. 12, December 2002
    http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/alsace/rfc/docs/cpar12_1.pdf

    * (fr) Brunner, Jean-Jacques. L'alsacien sans peine. ASSiMiL,
      2001. ISBN 2-7005-0222-1

    * (fr) Laugel-Erny, Elsa. Cours d'alsacien. Les Editions du Quai,
      1999. ISBN 978-2903548018

    * (fr) Matzen, Raymond, and Léon Daul. Wie Geht's ? Le dialecte à
      la portée de tous La Nuée Bleue, 1999. ISBN 2-7165-0464-4

    * (fr) Matzen, Raymond, and Léon Daul. Wie Steht's ? Lexiques
      alsacien et français, Variantes dialectales, Grammaire La Nuée
      Bleue, 2000. ISBN 2-7165-0525-X

    * (de) Frédéric Hartweg: Die Sprachen im Elsass: Kalter Krieg oder
      versöhntes Miteinander?. In: Ingo Kolboom und Bernd Rill
      (Hrsg.): Frankophonie -- nationale und internationale
      Dimensionen. Argumente und Materialien zum Zeitgeschehen 35,
      München: Hanns Seidel Stiftung, ISBN
      3-88795-249-9. 
http://www.hss.de/downloads/argumente_materialien_35.pdf

    * (de) Hubert Klausmann, Konrad Kunze und Renate Schrambke (1994):
      Kleiner Dialektatlas - Alemannisch und Schwäbisch in
      Baden-Württemberg. Veröff. Alem. Inst. Frbg. Themen der
      Landeskunde 6, Bühl (Baden): Konkordia, 1994.

    * (de) Friedrich Maurer: Neue Forschungen zur südwestdeutschen
      Sprachgeschichte. In: Sprachgeographie Beih. Wirkendes Wort. 21,
      S. 119-163, Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1972.

6. Any other relevant information: Do note there exists several
"sub-dialects" (specifically between North and South of Alsace) but I
do not know if there is a comprehensive list of them yet. Do note also
that some alsatian local dialects are *not* variant of Alemannic at
all but Franconian or even Roman languages. Alsatian is still in
common use in Alsace, spoken and written. There is a localization of
Microsoft Word
(
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub4C34FD0B1A7E46B88B0653D6358499FF/Doc~E7E48128AB8C348E1BCEB1EAF2D4105EA~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
)
but I do not know if they use proper language tags.
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---

From: Nicholas Shanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 14:21:57 +0000

Note: I haven't yet read most of the other replies to my email yet,  
sorry if I overlap with what others have said. Also moved email to new  
list per request from Mister Presuhn.

On 4 Jan 2008, at 19:59, John Cowan wrote:

> Nicholas Shanks scripsit:
>
>> the guy that submitted the scouse request has a vested
>> interest in his own dialect,
>
> Actually not:  I speak pure old classical East Coast American.

Oh. I was pretty sure in my mind that the person who registered it  
(who's name I could not recall) had referenced a dictionary that he  
had authored himself, partly it had stuck in my mind, and this book  
was published in the city of Liverpool, so I assumed he was from that  
area too. I visited a website referred to by the registration and it  
was all about why his accent was better than everyone else's and  
seemed generally derogatory to non-scousers. It offended me. Maybe my  
memory is playing tricks on me, in which case I apologise unreservedly.

>> en-US represents a cluster of dialects and accents, with a unified
>> orthography, and en-GB represents a cluster of accents and dialects
>> (some overlapping with en-US), but a different orthography. Thus
>> en-GB/US is pretty useless to people who are tagging audio data,
>> but quite useful to those tagging written data.
>
> Although of course there are many individual isoglosses that cross the
> Atlantic, I think you greatly overstate the case.

My point was not that there are accents similar on both sides, but  
more that there is no unified "en-US" accent, but there is a single en- 
US orthography. Likewise for -GB. thus the country codes aren't a  
precise way of identifying an accent, but are a precise way of  
disambiguating dates and the meaning of words, especially potentially  
upsetting ones like 'fanny'.

> I don't think there are any U.K. varieties that even a half-trained  
> person could mistake for
> American ones, and certainly not vice versa.

I agree

>> I believe that having a subtag registered is at present too difficult
>> (requirement for dictionaries!? what if it's mostly just an accent
>> with only phonemic changes relative to surrounding accents).
>
> Dictionaries are not required; they are just an example of the kind
> of documentation that's acceptable.  We need to be sure, when we are
> registering a tag, that it is not substantially identical with some
> existing tag, that's all, so there must exist documentation of the
> variety being tagged.

This sounds like an "en-scots" vs. "sco" kind of debate.

>> As an example, things like the supposedly "British English" speech
>> synthesizer voices on my computer (which the OS processes using the
>> tag "en_GB" from the voice's property list) sound nothing like most  
>> of
>> the accents of the United Kingdom,
>
> I doubt the en-US accent is much like the vast majority of U.S.  
> speakers
> nowadays either.

precisely :)

>> they would be better marked as "en-received" or similar.
>
> Register it, then.

Okay. All in favo(u)r say "Aye". ;-)

> If the document was tagged "en-US-dixie", then a synth with an "en-US"
> voice (probably so-called General American) would at least get it
> approximately right (assuming, that is, that it doesn't speak  
> Hawkingese,
> which sounds American to the English and pseudo-Swedish to the  
> Americans).

"Dixie" — I forgot what it was called!
Didn't quite get whether you were agreeing or disagreeing with me here.
What I was thinking was to allow content written with one orthography  
be read by a voice designed for a different one. Some conversion could  
happen e.g. if an american voice was reading aluminium it could drop  
the penultimate syllable and move the stress, instead of trying to  
pronounce it with a Gen. Am. accent.

>> I'm sure we can all agree on commonly recognised dialects for  
>> English,
>
> I wish I shared your certitude.

Which ones would you suggest as being problematic? I suggested en- 
scots above, though I can;t think of any more.
I would have thought looking through the lexicon of a language and  
seeing which accents/dialects/patois already have their own names  
would be a good start. Am I wrong?

- Nicholas.

---

From: Nicholas Shanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 15:02:37 +0000

On 4 Jan 2008, at 20:28, Randy Presuhn wrote:

>> I say this because en-US represents a cluster of
>> dialects and accents, with a unified orthography, and en-GB  
>> represents
>> a cluster of accents and dialects (some overlapping with en-US),
>
> Could you give an example of such an overlap?  The divergence in
> pronunciation was already marked in the 1700s.

I have personally noticed a lot of convergence is occurring here in  
the UK, with the large quantity of US sitcoms and music consumed. US  
speech patterns and pronunciations, especially when used in specific  
phrases, but also in the general patterns of speech. I don't believe  
it causes people to gradually start speaking with a different accent,  
but certainly can lead to blended speech in the young which differs  
from that of their parents. I have not looked for academic evidence  
for this though.

>> with only phonemic changes relative to surrounding accents). A
>> relaxation of the barriers would lead to more de facto recognised
>> dialects being available to choose from.
>
> I'm not able to figure out what you're trying to say here.

I want to say "Here's some subtags for English that I think should be  
registered. Anyone disagree?" and just list them by name, using  
commonly understood terms that lay people wanting to use the tags will  
be able to identify with ease.
By lay people I mean tens of millions of folks like my girlfriend, who  
wants to make a website about dolphins, and uses one of ov dem HMTL  
programs to do so.

>> the accents of the United Kingdom, they would be better marked as  
>> "en-
>> received" or similar.
>
> This is not a tagging problem.  It's a complaint about a speech
> synthesizer

I disagree here. It's not the synthesizer and/or website's fault that  
the palette of choices is so restricted. If those creating the voice  
were to have a wider choice of subtags, they could more accurately  
mark it up. The synth was just one example of electronic consumption  
of content. It may be a search engine or something as yet undreamt of.  
Age and the rural/urban split also have significant influences on  
language, though those are at present not dealt with.

> and could be made for any language not tagged right
> down to the level of some person's idiolect.

Agreed. The line has to be drawn somewhere. I just think it's too  
course at present. We have the facility for creating 'approved'  
subtags without anything breaking. We might as well use it to the  
maximum :-)

> I'd be surprised.  The "cowboy" dialects spoken by my relatives in
> South Dakota differ from what the ones in Wyoming speak, and
> neither sounds much like Bush-speak.  With variation seemingly on
> the rise in US English, compiling an agreed list might be harder
> than you think.

Should have used 'dixie' as was pointed out, but as I am not familiar  
with US dialects in general I wouldn't be suggesting any :)

>> as it is a first langauge for many people on this list, and familiar
>> for many others. For other languages compiling a list might involve
>> asking a scholar for suggestions.
>
> That's not how [email-masked] is supposed to work.

Okay. You referred to the mailing list. I was more referring to how  
the standard should be created.
I presume there are people out there (and on these lists) who get paid  
to create these things. These people would conduct or locate relevant  
research and create a map, rather like a barometric or elevation map,  
with contours encircling different dialects.

> Rather, someone (anyone) who has a need of a subtag for a
> particular dialect submits a registration request, the request is
> discussed, and the Language Subtag Reviewer decides whether
> to accept the registration.

The thing is most people using them in my field (web authors) have no  
idea this list exists, nor that they even have the need for a new  
subtag when they are creating new content. Quite often the tags are  
added without the author even knowing.
The tags have to be created beforehand and given as options on a  
platter to these people by the software.
If you expect users to register their own codes, would you like to see  
dialog boxes like this when people press 'save as HTML' ?

Please choose the most appropriate language tag for this page:
[ ]  en    English (language WizzoWebWhacker is running in)
[ ]  en-IE Hibernian English (taken from your time zone)
[x]  en-enteryourdialecthere (automatically sends a registration email  
to IETF)

[Cancel] [Okay]

(I write that only half in jest)

>> It occurred to me while writing this that perhaps a good solution
>> would be to use country codes for written content that uses the
>> national orthography, and dialect tags when transcribing spoken
>> content or for audio data. You would only combine the two if you were
>> transcribing the speech of someone with that dialect into the
>> orthography of a country (maybe not the country of the speaker).
>
> Interesting idea.  Discussion of such a proposal belongs on [email-masked] 
> ,
> not here.

Moved. No comments on this? Obviously changes like this would have to  
be best practice suggestions, and not rules, for compatibility.

- Nicholas.

---

From: Nicholas Shanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 15:22:53 +0000

On 7 Jan 2008, at 07:40, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:

> This is a bad start for the discussion. If you call each proposal
> "partizan", we will soon go to flame wars...

Well that's why I want someone who can be seen to be impartial to go  
through and do them all!

>> If I requested the registration of "alsatian" and not a general
> registration of all alemannic dialects, it's because I know about this
> dialect (or knows where to find information).

Well you probably know enough about the others to decide how many  
there are and give them names. It will then be up to users to pick the  
closest/most appropriate for their use case.

>> nobody has bothered to register the others.
>
> The IETF is volunteer work.

Well the standards produced are used by corporations like Sony.  
Couldn't there be a clause that public companies contribute some  
nominal fee to get things looked after professionally?
Do these standards not get adopted by the ISO, IEEE and W3C, all of  
whom have money? They could also pay someone to do a thorough job.

> I would partly agree (I wrote some of the texts on
> http://www.langtag.net/ because I wanted to help registration
> beginners) but only partly because registration of a subtag is a
> serious matter (once a subtag, always a subtag, there is no way back)
> and should not be done lightly.

Thanks for the URL! I will go through the registration page and see if  
I can get many UK dialects of English officially sanctioned by the end  
of this. It looks very useful for pointing beginners and not-beginners- 
but-not-experts-either at. Thanks for creating this resource :-)

>> English, as it is a first langauge for many people on this list, and
>> familiar for many others.
>
> I am not sure you properly assert the amount of work it
> means.

Perhaps not for some dialects, but surely every language has low- 
hanging fruit that all can agree on? Getting all of these would at  
least be a start.

>> For other languages compiling a list might involve asking a scholar
>> for suggestions.
>
> This would be a huge change from "Anyone can request a registration,
> if he backs his request with serious facts" from "A committee playing
> ISO-639, but without the resources of SIL". I'm note sure I would
> approve it. But, anyway, this discussion belongs to the LTRU Working
> Group.

The SIL could help. Good idea :)

- Nicholas.

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 10:36:45 -0500

> memory is playing tricks on me, in which case I apologise unreservedly.

No problem.  Both Stan Kelly-Bootle and I are Olde Hacqueres these
days (born in 1929 and 1958 respectively), but we are quite distinct.
For example, while we both have written folk songs, his have actually
been performed by singers of note, whereas mine have been sung only
by myself.  His book on Scouse is in its sixteenth edition, whereas
my book on Lojban is still mired between its first and second edition,
without much prospect of progress.  He was awarded the first Diploma in
Computer Science from Cambridge University, whereas I have no degrees
at all.  There are many other such points.

As for Kelly-Bootle's alleged belief in the superiority of his own accent:
given his known and evil sense of humor, I diffidently suggest that he
was taking the Minnie out of you, as I believe y'all say in Rightpondia.
("The English-speaking nations are Rightpondia and Begrudgeria in Europe,
Leftpondia and Northicia (pronounced with four syllables) in America,
Bharattia in Asia, Sarfeffrica and Cecilia (now called Zimbabwe) in
Africa, and Downundria and Aotearoa in Oceania. Rightpondia may further
be divided into the four sub-nations of Londonia, Eboracia, Bagpipia,
and Quaint." -- me)

> This sounds like an "en-scots" vs. "sco" kind of debate.

A fine example of why trying to make firm decisions about dialects
is a tricky business.

> Okay. All in favo(u)r say "Aye". ;-)

Not so fast.  You have to follow the RFC 4646 procedures, and do it back
on ietf-languages.

> pronounce it with a Gen. Am. accent.

Quite.  I was addressing your point that "en-dixie" is superior to
"en-US-dixie" by pointing out that on the contrary the latter has
better default fallback properties.  A synthesizer that can
recognize the "en-US" part can produce at least some American voice,
whereas with "en-dixie" it will probably produce its default "en",
which may or may not be American.

> scots above, though I can;t think of any more.

(I believe we settled on "en-scotland".)

The difficulty is to know where to stop.  For example, the American
South is a fairly well-defined dialect area, but how many dialects does
it contain?  There is the centuries-old distinction between the northern
and the southern portions, and a more recent split (of the last fifty
years or so) between the inland and coastal parts of the latter.  But much
finer subdivision can be and has been done when necessary and appropriate.
ietf-languages has therefore always taken an agnostic approach, waiting
for people to declare their actual needs rather than trying to impose a
particular systematism on the data ("en-scouse" and "en-boont" were in
the way of test cases rather than ones required by my personal needs).

> would be a good start. Am I wrong?

It isn't very reliable, as dialects often don't become popularly visible
for a long time after they are tenaciously established.  For example,
the "Northern Cities" accent of en-us is a matter of the last fifty years
or so, like the Inland South I mentioned above, yet very few Americans,
*including the speakers*, are even aware of its existence.  Yet it is
radically different phonologically, having massive differences in the
short vowels as great as (but not the same as) traditional Cockney,
Australian, or New Zealander.  Only when specific instances arise, as
when a boy moved "Ian" newly named to the region is teased because his
peers hear his name as "Ann", does any awareness of a dialect spoken by
millions of people in the U.S. come to the surface.

(The U.S. isn't the only place with new dialects; Scouse only arose in
19th century, when the Liverpool's original dialect became heavily mixed
with Hiberno-English.)

[from another email]

> from that of their parents. I have not looked for academic evidence

Quite right: convergence is going on.  But divergence is too.

> be able to identify with ease.

Unfortunately, counterexamples like Northern Cities make that impossible --
it unquestionably exists, but most people haven't heard of it.

> subtags without anything breaking. We might as well use it to the

To, but not beyond.  Waiting (for the most part) for actual need
rather than pre-registering en masse is an attempt to avoid such
false positives, particularly since "once registered, always registered".

> with contours encircling different dialects.

Things are not so cut and dried, not even at the level of languages.
We have (for better and worse) adopted ISO 639-3, which is a splitter
among language taxonomies -- that is, it is much more likely to call a
difference between varieties a language rather than a dialect difference
than other taxonomies are.  What's left we have to work our way through
carefully.

> added without the author even knowing.

Indeed, search engines are known to entirely discard all "en" tags,
as they are applied by broken software to texts in entirely different
languages so often as to be worthless.  Fortunately, authorial tagging
of random Web documents is not the only BCP 47 application.

> platter to these people by the software.

True, which means it waits until some volunteer armed with sufficient
knowledge, documentation, and dedication steps forward (whether the
volunteer is paid by someone else to do it is not a consideration in
the IETF).  Fortunately, even a little accurate tagging goes a long way.

> be best practice suggestions, and not rules, for compatibility.

We do have similar remarks in the current RFC 4646bis draft.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  http://ccil.org/~cowan
Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic
realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers,
philologists, psychologists, biologists and neurologists, along with
whatever blood can be got out of grammarians. - Russ Rymer

---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 07:54:08 -0800

> From: Nicholas Shanks [mailto:[email-masked]]

> were to have a wider choice of subtags, they could more accurately mark
> it up.

Trying to come up with a universal inventory of dialect tags is the wrong approach. If the developers of the synthesizer are simply missing the right dialect tag, then they should register it. IMO, the correct approach to dialect sub-tags is to let them be registered as individual needs are identified.

Peter

---

From: Nicholas Shanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 17:43:31 +0000

> was taking the Minnie out of you, as I believe y'all say in  

My father says "extracting the Michael" ;-)

> be divided into the four sub-nations of Londonia, Eboracia, Bagpipia,

You now have me thoroughly befuddled. How can Northicia be pronounced  
with anything other than four syllables? I would have thought you'd  
use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonistan

> Not so fast.  You have to follow the RFC 4646 procedures, and do it  

So that one is just for proposals and ensuing stick-beating, and this  
one is for general chit-chat?

> better default fallback properties.

You're right. I think I was getting a bit muddled with my original  
email because I kept going back and forth within it changing things. I  
prefer en-US-dixie for fallback reasons, unless that orthography  
suggestion were to come into play, in which case "en-GB-dixie" would  
be representing a Southerner transcribed into British English (or  
maybe an expat Southerner come to live in Blighty)

> A synthesizer that can

Things processing accents would need to know that it can drop the  
country code too.
Foe example en-scouse and en-GB-scouse both represent the same thing.  
(yes, I know the second isn't technically registered, but people will  
still use those kinds of constructs because they don't know any  
better). Same with en-GB-oed.

> The difficulty is to know where to stop.

I suggested just having those dialects that have names in the general  
lexicon of speakers of the host language. Specific needs can continue  
to be catered for by individual requests.

> waiting

I have absolutely no idea who a boont is :)

> it unquestionably exists, but most people haven't heard of it.

People don't have to see the actual tag, or know what it's called.  
They could simply pick "New England (Wash./NYC/Boston)" from a list,  
and the software would put in the right tag, if that's the level of  
granularity available.

> false positives, particularly since "once registered, always  

Many of the tags already registered will become obsolete in a few  
centuries anyway.
Unless you have two tags that denote the same dialect. False positives  
can have notes added saying "This has been reclassified as being xx- 
foobar. Use that tag instead." and it reduced to the role of synonym.  
There are already many tags floating around that are made up (see how  
widespread "en-cockney" has become after being used as an example for  
the Content-Language HTTP header). I don't think registering them all  
and categorising some as synonyms of others is all that problematic,  
indeed it removes ambiguity of having to process an unregistered tag.

> of random Web documents is not the only BCP 47 application.

It is the one I care most about, however. The other being how my OS  
uses them to do various stuff. For example, if I set my locale to  
en_DE so that I get the Euro currency symbol by default, and the right  
Summer/Winter Time dates, VLC comes up in German (i.e. that particular  
software ignores the language code and changes it's language based on  
the country code!). I already mentioned it's use by the TTS system.

> the IETF).  Fortunately, even a little accurate tagging goes a long  

I guess that means me, right?
Okay, so here's a list of 'named' British accents that I can think of.  
Please add/remove from this list and when it reaches stability I will  
try and find some documentation for each one so it can get added. I  
tried to go one level down from en-GB and en-IE without getting too  
picky.

Class-based accents:
received (pronunciation)

Geographically-based accents:
wales
scotland
ireland (aka hiberno; to cover both North and South, whereas a cc can't)
cockney
estuary
brummie (inc. black country)
scouse
mancunian
yorkshire (tyke; all ridings)
geordie (inc. maccam)

Age-based orthographies:
txtspk

Fictional English which might occur:
newspeak

Some of the above cribbed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

- Nicholas.

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:25:57 -0800

Hi -

As a technical contributor:

> From: "Nicholas Shanks" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:43 AM
> Subject: [Ltru] Re: Progressing beyond borders-making subtags inclusive
...
> use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonistan

In my accent the sequence -icia is normally pronounced the same as the
sequence -isha. Two syllables.  I had to think about the "four syllables"
a bit, and still am unsure whether the "c" would be an "s" or "sh" or
possibly "ch" or "ts".

> one is for general chit-chat?

[email-masked] is for specific registration requests.
Talk about what the procedures or syntax should be (not "general
chit-chat")  belongs on [email-masked]

....
> to be catered for by individual requests.

A couple of obstacles exist to using this kind of approach:

   (1) there are *lots* of languages out there, and the folks on
         [email-masked] probably do not have that level of
         expertise in most of them, and must thus rely on others to
         determine whether there is a need to tag a particular distinction.

   (2) the names and distinctions observed in the general lexicon of
        the speakers of a host language are at best only a starting point.
        For example, my brother and sister have clearly different accents.
        An untrained native speaker from the region might say "South
        Dakota cowboy" and "rural Minnesota".  A dialectologist would
        use different terms, and for some purposes might choose to lump
        them together (as does the Wikipedia article you cited), since
        there are some common features, even though anyone from the
        region will tell they're different. 

  (3) How does one decide that one has gathered an adequate set for
        a particular language?  It could easily be misunderstood as
        "endorsing" or "recognizing" a particular set of dialects, potentially
        politicizing work.

> and the software would put in the right tag, if that's the level of  

The philosophy has been to not try to second-guess the level of granularity
needed.  For example, I'd be quite amazed to find Washington lumped
in with the accents of New England.  There are historically several different
accents associated with Boston, and one can still hear them in use.  My
expectation as a user of a tool that was able to distinguish Washington
and New York City forms of speech would be that it would distinguish the
various accents of Boston, since the differences are at least as great.
But the point is that we don't have the resources to do this,
in advance of any stated need, for all the dialects of all the languages in the
registry.

...
> the country code!). I already mentioned it's use by the TTS system.

Let's not confuse locales with language tags, despite the fact that some
strings are would be well-formed in either role.

....
> tried to go one level down from en-GB and en-IE without getting too  

As co-chair:

Now, registration requests for specific subtags belong on [email-masked]
General principles here, specific cases there.

I'm inclined to tolerate discussion of such a list ere only to the extent that
it helps the WG decide whether it would make sense to change the
existing modus operandi with respect to subtags for dialects.

Randy

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 15:44:00 -0500

[Off-topic post; I've set Reply-To to me.]

> a bit, and still am unsure whether the "c" would be an "s" or "sh" or

An "s"; the intention was North-Icy-a.  The other jokes will be explained
off-list to enquirers.

> in advance of any stated need, for all the dialects of all the languages in the

Indeed.

	Some say the world will end in fire,	
	Some say in ice.	
	From what I've tasted of desire	
	I hold with those who favor fire.	
	But if it had to perish twice,
	I think I know enough of hate	
	To know that for destruction ice	
	Is also great	
	And would suffice.
		--Robert Frost (1920)

-- 
A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want         John Cowan
to drive him out of town isn't a rabbi,         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
and a rabbi who lets them do it                 [email-masked]
isn't a man.    --Jewish saying

---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 13:00:37 -0800

> From: Randy Presuhn

>    (1) there are *lots* of languages out there...

>         the speakers of a host language are at best only a starting
>         point...

+1 on both points. Even if there weren't lots of languages, there is no one convention for tiling the plane of dialects. (It's hard enough to agree on tiling the plane of languages.) With some many individual axes of variation, dialect variation in the wild can sometimes amount to idiolects as points in a nearly-continuous field. There's no need for dialect sub-tags unless there is a conventionally-recognized distinction that is a useful distinction to make in language resources. Again, I think the best approach is to register those on a case-by-case basis as needs are identified.

Peter

---

From: "Debbie Garside" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:10:49 -0000

Peter wrote:

Even if there weren't lots of languages,
> there is no one convention for tiling the plane of dialects.
> (It's hard enough to agree on tiling the plane of languages.)
> With some many individual axes of variation, dialect
> variation in the wild can sometimes amount to idiolects as
> points in a nearly-continuous field. There's no need for
> dialect sub-tags unless there is a conventionally-recognized
> distinction that is a useful distinction to make in language
> resources. Again, I think the best approach is to register
> those on a case-by-case basis as needs are identified.

I fear the true question is "what is a language/dialect"?  Better to work on
linguistic entities methinks!

Best regards

Debbie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Constable [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: 07 January 2008 21:01
> To: LTRU Working Group
> Subject: RE: [Ltru] Re: Progressing beyond borders-making
> subtags inclusive
>
> > From: Randy Presuhn
>
> > > I suggested just having those dialects that have names in the
> > > general lexicon of speakers of the host language.
> Specific needs can
> > > continue to be catered for by individual requests.
> >
> +1 on both points. Even if there weren't lots of languages,
> there is no one convention for tiling the plane of dialects.
> (It's hard enough to agree on tiling the plane of languages.)
> With some many individual axes of variation, dialect
> variation in the wild can sometimes amount to idiolects as
> points in a nearly-continuous field. There's no need for
> dialect sub-tags unless there is a conventionally-recognized
> distinction that is a useful distinction to make in language
> resources. Again, I think the best approach is to register
> those on a case-by-case basis as needs are identified.
>
>
>
> Peter
>
>