natural language

[lisa.carnahan@nist.gov]

In thinking about the  information that a submitter would want a user to
know, the issue of natural languages has come up.

Two questions: 

Should we specify an element that contains the natural language that the
metadata is written in?

Should we specify an element that contains the natural language that the
registered-item (data element) is written in?   I'm assuming that
XML-related  and SGML-related documents can be written in natural languages
other than english?

We could use language-code as defined by ISO639 and a subcode of
country-code as defined by ISO3166.  (This is IMS' usage.)

--lisa

Lisa J. Carnahan
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Information Technology Laboratory
Room 562, Bldg. 820
Gaithersburg, Md. 20899
USA

lisa.carnahan@nist.gov
(301) 975-3362 voice 
(301) 948-6213 fax