[OntGov] Multilingual support

[Lowry, Roy K.]

Dear All,

I am proposing basing language labelling in the NETMAR semantic resources on ISO639-1, a collection of 2-bytes codes representing 136 languages.  As far as I can ascertain, it is the most widely followed part of the standard, although Dublin Core documentation quotes ISO639-3 (3-bytes codes covering many more languages). It is largely followed by GEMET, although they have extensions to differentiate between UK and US English and specify a Chinese dialect.  US and UK English are not differentiated in ISO639-3.

I have two questions:

1)      Does anybody disagree with the choice of ISO639-1 for NETMAR?
2)      Do we need to differentiate between UK and US English?  I'm thinking particularly of the ICAN semantic requirements here. If so, should we follow GEMET, who code UK English 'en' and US English 'en-US', into extension of ISO639-1?

Cheers, Roy.


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