Re: [geolang-comment] First proposals for ISO 639 and 3166 available

[Murray Altheim <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>]

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

> 
> * Murray Altheim
> |
> | Hmmm. Pardon me for butting in, but I'm curious as to how (apart
> | from any perceived mistakes in naming the typing topics) the current
> | approach is different from the one taken in the current language
> | set?
> 
> I am not sure what you mean. What "current language set", and what
> "current approach"?


Sorry. I should have read what I wrote. I'll just restate:

I'm curious as to how (apart from any perceived mistakes in naming
the typing topics) the approach you are taking is different from the
one taken in the language.xtm topic map in the XTM 1.0 Specification?


> | I seem to remember arguing back in December of 2000 about this, but
> | my assertion remains, i.e., that it's dangerous to tread into this
> | territory any further than to simply reify the available 639
> | language codes and let interpretation and use of them be up to the
> | user and their specific application, the same approach as ISO has
> | chosen in this regard. It seems foolhardy to attempt more.
>  
> I think we all agree on this.


Then why the long discussion with John Cowan about the issue? I don't
understand the rationale of discussing reinterpretation of 639 unless
one is contemplating it.


> | I don't believe topic maps are by their nature any more
> | "ontological" than any other representation of knowledge.
> 
> Well, I was referring to PDF and CSV files, which are what ISO 639 is
> expressed in. I assume you would agree topic maps are more ontological
> than those? :-)


I guess you'd have to define "ontological" (probably as misused a
term as "semantic"). What notation a file is in might be considered
pretty irrelevant to its content. I don't see that the content of
639 is any different expressed in a PDF file or a topic map, in
terms of meaning ("ontology"). If you're talking about machine-
processability, that's not ontology, that is machine processability.


> | The ISO 639 set of codes representing the names of languages is
> | similarly "ontological," and the meanings of those codes surely
> | should not change merely because of their transformation into [XTM]
> | Topics.
> 
> No, that would take away the whole meaning of what we are trying to
> do. 


Huh? I don't understand. Unless you plan to change the meaning of those
codes (which you seem to deny above), we simply need a topic for each
of those codes, with the *exact* same meaning, the same interpretation
as the codes have within 639. Stepping outside those bounds is exactly
what I was concerned was being proposed, and what you seem to deny is
happening. Please clarify.

> However, when looking at ISO 639 it is not always perfectly clear
> what it is trying to say. The type assignments, in particular, are not
> explicitly present in the text, whereas we have to either make them
> or not make them.


Whether or not 639 is "perfectly clear" it is not up to this TC to
deal with. To do so would be to reinterpret 639. The ISO code sets
have wide usage, and I suspect so might the same in a topic map.


> | Any additional meaning would be beyond the scope of this TC and
> | require a team of linguistic experts, who would likely never agree
> | to more than a simple representation of language names, never on
> | language groupings.
> 
> Agreed. Either we include the types because the standard says they
> should be assigned in a particular way, or we leave them out, because
> the standard does not say anything about them.
> 
> | It's been shown recently that the concept of "race" is fallacious,
> | and the idea that there are distinct boundaries between languages
> | (and not a continuum, a continual intermixing and evolution) is
> | similarly fallacious, [...]
> 
> Certainly. Personally, I think that this applies to all subjecs, and
> the idea that subjects are Platonic and pre-existing independent of
> what we say about them is simply false. I think Bernard would agree
> with that.


Yes, perhaps anyone who has been keeping up with the philosophical
discussions of the past 120 years.


> | Why attempt to tread upon a territory that is *known* to be full of
> | land mines? I keep hearing this same discussion brought up again and
> | again.
> 
> What's your point, Murray? What is it you want to do with the
> published subject sets? Maybe I'm just being thick-headed, but I don't
> understand what you want us to do.


I'm not sure what is unclear. I've said it many, many times, and
began my interjection here with it. I think the languages topic map
should reify the codes in 639 as topics. Nothing more. If you need
a typing topic to tie them all together, fine. But going beyond that
begins to reinterpret the standard, which I *think* we agree is a
bad idea.

If I have a point that hasn't been stated, it's perhaps that apart
from changing the names of typing topics in the existing language.xtm
and country.xtm, and updating any code changes from ISO, I don't see
what it is you guys feel is necessary to do. This was discussed a
long time ago as a task that could be completed in very short order.
Steve argued rather vociferously that Ontopia's business was in
jeopardy because changes needed to be made *quickly* to those topic
maps, and that those changes were relatively minor (in terms of number
of necessary edits). Not participating in the meetings I suppose I
simply don't know what the agenda of the GeoLang TC is, any more than
that.

I'm not trying to raise a ruckus, I just don't see why there seems
to be so much discussion about what I thought was a straightforward
task, and the only way I could understand why that discussion was
happening was if you were treading into territory that I thought
we'd all agreed was verboten, or at very least unwise.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

      One of the sad things about corporations is that despite
      their name they have no corpora, no body responsible for
      their actions. They are therefore free to do whatever is
      the will of those who control them, and can transmogrify
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                                                          --ma