69 lines
4.3 KiB
XML
69 lines
4.3 KiB
XML
<page title="Find a subtag for my language / dialect / script">
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<p>Very often, people who are not used to <a href="whatare.html">language
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tagging</a> hesitate before choosing a tag for a given
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combination of language, region, script, etc. You can find the result
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of these hesitations on the Web, with people tagging, for instance,
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<wikipedia name="Japanese language">japanese</wikipedia> as <code>jp</code> (the proper
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subtag for the japanese <em>language</em> is <code>ja</code>,
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<code>jp</code> is for the country) or using subtags that are not
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registered
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because they did not find the valid
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ones. The purpose of this small text is to explain how to find a
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subtag registered in the <em>Language Subtag Registry</em>. There are
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many ways to do so, of course, and you are free to report
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better ways.</p>
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<p>The first thing to try is probably to use <a
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href="http://people.w3.org/rishida/utils/subtags/">Richard Ishida's
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Language Subtag Registry Search</a>. You can enter text which appears
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in the Description or Comments field of the registry and the
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corresponding subtags will be displayed. For instance, for japanese,
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it will correctly report <code>ja</code> (and the script
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<code>Jpan</code>, which indicates the mix of
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<wikipedia name="Kanji">Han</wikipedia>, <wikipedia>Hiragana</wikipedia> and
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<wikipedia>Katakana</wikipedia>).</p>
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<p>A more powerful, but probably less user-friendly, method, is to use
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the registry directly. Since its canonical form is more adapted to
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computer programs than to humans (for instance,
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<wikipedia>Unicode</wikipedia> characters are reported as XML escapes,
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like &#xE7;), it may be better to use of the <a
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href="registries.html/">many unofficial forms</a>, automatically
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computed from the official one, and available for
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various environments. For instance, you may load the <a
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href="registries/language-subtag-registry-utf8">text version</a> and use the Find
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function of your Web browser (Control-F in
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<wikipedia>Firefox</wikipedia>). Say that you are not sure of the
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proper subtag for the <wikipedia name="Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics">canadian
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aboriginal script</wikipedia>, searching "canadian" that way soon discovers
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the subtag <code>Cans</code>.</p>
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<p>Both Richard Ishida's Web service and the above method have a
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limit: they only use information that is in the registry. If the relationship between common
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names and the tags is not in the registry, you will not find it. For
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instance, if you want to identify "<wikipedia name="British English">British English</wikipedia>", you have to realize
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that that is done by constructing the tag <code>en-GB</code> (not <code>en-UK</code>) from
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subtags in the registry. Similarly, if you want to
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write texts in <wikipedia name="Alsatian language">Alsatian</wikipedia>, and search this word
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in the registry, you won't find anything.</p>
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<p>You have to use external tools, but please check their results
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against the registry, with the tools mentioned above. A good search
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tool is
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<wikipedia>Wikipedia</wikipedia>. The english-speaking Wikipedia
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displays the <wikipedia>ISO</wikipedia> code names for most of the
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languages it talks about. Since most subtags in the registry are based
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on ISO standards, this works most of the time. For instance, the article on Alsatian will
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show the language code <code>gsw</code>
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(<wikipedia name="Alemannic German">Alemannic</wikipedia>), which, even if it is broader than the Alsatian dialect, is a good start.</p>
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<p>For languages (but not scripts or dialects), another very useful
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source is <a href="http://www.ethnologue.com/">Ethnologue</a>, which is
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managed by the <wikipedia>ISO 639</wikipedia> registration agency. It
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has a <a href="http://www.ethnologue.com/site_search.asp">search function</a> that allows you to use words that are not in the
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formal standard. For example,
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searching for "Alsatian", you'll find
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<code><a href="http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gsw">http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gsw</a></code>, where there is the
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comment: "Called 'Schwyzerdütsch' in Switzerland, and 'Alsatian' in France". But be careful:
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Ethnologue displays only 3-letters code, while the registry
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uses 2-letters code whenever they are available. For instance, <wikipedia name="French language">French</wikipedia> is
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<code>fr</code>, not <code>fra</code>.</p>
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<p>TODO: endonyms and exonyms</p>
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</page>
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