Re: [docbook] advices for xml:lang attributes with Chinese

["Christopher R. Maden" <crism@maden.org>]

[N.B.: Since this question is about using DocBook, rather than 
discussion of the schema itself, the docbook-apps list is more appropriate.]

On 10/22/2015 09:38 AM, Eric Streit wrote:
> I am formating a document with 3 languages: English (the main language),
> Chinese (mandarin 你好 ) and Chinese Pinyin (nǐhǎo)
>
> The Chinese parts are surrounded by  <foreignphrase> tags.
>
> I don't know which xml:lang attributes I have to use for the Pinyin part
> and the ideogram part.

Mandarin is cmn, although zh (for all Chinese languages) is often 
recommended instead.  It partly depends on your consumers; Web browsers 
may respond better to zh than to cmn, or zh-CN (for Chinese as she is 
spoke in PRC, i.e., generally Mandarin).

See <URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639_macrolanguage >, <URL: 
http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=cmn >.

That language code is appropriate for both the hanzi and pinyin parts. 
If you want to further distinguish, you can specify the script: cmn-Hani 
for the hanzi, and cmn-Latn for the pinyin.

Since hanzi is the normal writing mode for Chinese, you don’t really 
need the Hani suffix; cmn, zh, or zh-CN should suffice.

You could be even more pedantic for the pinyin (since there are multiple 
transliteration systems for Chinese languages), and specify cmn-Latn-pinyin.

HTH,
Chris
--
Chris Maden, text nerd  <URL: http://crism.maden.org/ >
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