Language Subtag Registration Form: variant "signed"
dewell at adelphia.net
Sun Feb 26 03:13:53 CET 2006
Frank Ellermann <nobody at xyzzy dot claranet dot de> wrote:
>> Prefix: en-GB
>> Prefix: en-IE
>> Prefix: en-US
> Hi, how about focussing on this part as indicated by your
> evidence ? It's already interesting to discuss why you
> pick these three region prefixes out of dozens plausible
> combinations, notably en-AU, en-CA, en-NZ, and en.
According to Michael's page at:
these are signed spoken languages identified by SIL in Ethnologue. Most
or all of these are also identified on Gallaudet University's FAQ page.
The goal was to provide a tag using "-signed" corresponding to each of
the tags Michael proposed that use "sgn-" plus an ISO 639-2 language
code and ISO 3166-1 country code:
Signed Afrikaans (South Africa): sgn-afr-ZA
Signed Chinese (Taiwan): sgn-chi-TW
Signed Danish (Denmark): sgn-dan-DK
Signed Dutch (Belgium): sgn-dut-BE
Signed Dutch (Netherlands): sgn-dut-NL
Signed English (United Kingdom): sgn-eng-GB
Signed English (Ireland): sgn-eng-IE
Signed English (USA): sgn-eng-US
Signed Finnish (Finland): sgn-fin-FI
Signed French (Belgium): sgn-fre-BE
Signed French (Canada): sgn-fre-CA
Signed French (France): sgn-fre-FR
Signed Japanese (Japan): sgn-jpn-JP
Signed Norwegian (Norway): sgn-nor-NO
Signed Portuguese (Portugal): sgn-por-PT
Signed Swedish (Sweden): sgn-swe-SE
Note the distinction between (for example) Signed Dutch for Belgium and
Signed Dutch for the Netherlands. Since a difference between these two
is asserted, and since Michael assigned two different tags, I assigned
two different prefixes with built-in region subtags. I do not
personally stipulate that such a distinction exists; that is left to
better scholars. I merely provided encodings for the distinction that
others have claimed.
I did not indicate a region for the others, since no indication was
given that (for example) Signed Japanese for Japan would differ from
Signed Japanese for somewhere else. The sole exception was Signed
Chinese for Taiwan, because the differences between varieties of spoken
and written Chinese are well known and it seems likely that a putative
Signed Chinese for China or Hong Kong or anywhere else would also
differ. In retrospect, I might have left this out, or alternatively,
might have applied the concept to Portuguese as well. This is why we
have a review period.
> Is that so ? What's the difference between say en-GB-signed
> and en-IE-signed ? I'd prefer to skip the regions and just
> say Prefix: en if that's good enough.
If we assign "en" as a prefix, we cannot subsequently split it into
"en-US" and "en-GB" and "en-IE". (See Section 3.4, item 4.) Doing so
would exclude "en-AU" and "en-CA" and others, narrowing the set of
prefixes rather than broadening it. We can only start with a narrow set
of prefix definitions and broaden it, or else leave it alone.
> The 3066bis example says that sl-IT-nedis is okay for the
> registered Prefix: sl
Yes, and if we indicated "en" as a prefix for "signed" it would be
possible to write "en-AU-signed" without any indication that such a
signed spoken language exists. OTOH (devil's advocate), this is the
same situation as for "en-AQ". What does the rest of the list think: do
these prefix distinctions help or hurt?
John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:
> I continue to believe that signed spoken languages should be
> handled with an extension so that both the lexical source
> (a SL) and the grammatical source (a spoken language) can be
> fully specified.
Then please propose an extension as per Section 3.7. I'll work with you
on it if you like. On the LTRU list I got a strong sense from most
participants (which I did not share) that extensions were a horrible
hack that should never actually come to pass.
Fullerton, California, USA
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