Re: [geolang-comment] what is a language

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

Bandholtz, Thomas wrote:

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@reutershealth.com]
> ...
>
>>That sounds just about right to me.  Where is the relaxed definition?

[...]

I hate to be a spoil-sport, but this is a repeat of a long discussion
that occurred back in 2000 during the TopicMaps.Org development of
the XTM 1.0 Specification, and again at the beginning of the Pubsubj
TC. "Language" is a politically, socially, and emotionally-charged
subject, and I don't think it's in the purview of this TC to attempt
to resolve it. We'd agreed that existing, standardized codes were a
fairly safe target, but that outside of that, attempting to standard-
ize others would be ripe for problems. ISO, the UN, etc. seemed ripe
for a topic map.

The Ethnologue is very cool, and while I myself don't have any
particular difficulty with it (being a white male whose native tongue
is English), there are some people who violently disagree with its
characterizations. Calling someone's spoken language a "dialect" can
end in fisticuffs in a lot of places. Do we really want to get into
that? I'm unclear to what end you guys are leading, other than
perhaps general interest.

Murray

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

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu