Internet DRAFT - draft-carrasco-language-code
draft-carrasco-language-code
<INTERNET-DRAFT> M.T. Carrasco Benitez
<draft-carrasco-language-code-00.txt>
Expires 30 September 1998 31 March 1998
Codes for language transformation
Status of this Memo
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Overview and Rational
The RFC1766 describes the language tags. In the present form, it
does not allow to indicate language transformations such as
transliteration. This memo is a proposition to allow such
transformations.
Overview
This is a draft proposal to extend the RFC1766 to cover language
transformations (transliteration/transcription/trans-anything) from
one language (the source language) to another (the target
language).
In this context, tranformation means that the source language is
expressed in another way (e.g., in another alphabet) for people
familiar with the target language. This is not translation. There
can be many different transformation schemes between two
languages.
The source language and the target language could be the same. In
this case, it will be a transformation within the same language. For
example, a transformation from English expressed with the Latin
alphabet into English in Braille.
Question: Does it makes sense to include Braille transformation ?
Syntax
This is the proposed syntax:
ss-tran-tt-sss
where
* ss : Source language. Primary language tag. ISO 639 two character
language code. Mandatory.
* tran : Transformation indicator. First subtag. Literal string
"tran". Mandatory.
* tt : Target language. Second subtag. ISO 639 two character language
code. Optional. If missing, the target language is the same as the
source language.
* sss : Transformation scheme. Second (if the target language is
missing) or third subtag. Must be three or more characters to avoid
confusion with the target language. Optional. If missing, the default
transformation is applied.
Examples
* fr-tran : French to French with the default transformation (e.g.,
Braille).
* el-tran-en : Greek to English with the default transformation
(e.g., some transliteration).
* fr-tran-mybraille2 : French to French with transformation
mybraille2.
* el-tran-en-mytran3 : Greek to English with the transformation
mytran3.
This syntax only requires registering "tran" with AINA.
Schemes
A scheme system is needed that defines:
* The tranformations between ordered (i.e., ru-en is different from
en-ru) language pair.
* The default transformation for each ordered language pair.
Author's Address
Manuel Tomas CARRASCO BENITEZ
The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
7 Westferry Circus
Canary Wharf
London E14 4HB
U.K.
Phone: +44 171 418 8645
Email: manuel.carrasco@emea.eudra.org
URL: http://dragoman.org
References
[RFC1766]
"Tags for the Identification of Languages", H. Alvestrand, March 1995.
Available at http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1766.txt
This document is html format.
http://dragoman.org/winter/lanco.html
