From: JFC Morfin (jefsey@jefsey.com)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2008 - 20:53:47 CDT
At 07:43 12/04/2008, Doug Ewell wrote:
>Marion Gunn <mgunn at egt dot ie> wrote:
>
>>Thank you for that comprehensive explication, Kenneth, which
>>amounts to saying, if I understand you correctly, that it would
>>have been more correct for me to say "ISO/IEC 10646 is an
>>international standard published in at least two independent
>>languages, but the corresponding Unicode standard is a commercial
>>standard published only in US (Anglo-American) English", (which, I
>>trust, better answers the query someone else raised concerning
>>bilingualism in the matter of publishing standards).
>
>I don't think it amounts to that at all.
>
>Marion's second version corrects the error of projecting the
>bilingualism of ISO/IEC 10646 onto all ISO standards, but does
>nothing to address the misleading pseudo-contrast between
>"international standard" and "commercial standard" -- as though a
>standard promulgated by an industry consortium cannot be
>international in nature.
>
>Additionally, if it is really necessary to point out that the
>Unicode Standard is written in "US (Anglo-American) English," I
>don't see why the shorter but equivalent term "US English" wouldn't
>be preferable.
At 20:24 12/04/2008, Asmus Freytag wrote:
>It also continues to wrongly imply that the French version of 10646
>is in any way verified or approved by the working group that
>maintains 10646. It's pure and simple an after-the-fact translation.
>While it is true that the translation is published through official
>channels, this does not mean that there has been a formal
>verification of its contents as rigorous as the review and balloting
>of the original version. I'm sure the translators did a good job,
>but in any doubt about a fine point of the specification, you need
>to refer to the English version.
>
>Incidentally, the same translators have provided a translation of
>the character names and annotations for the Unicode standard, which
>was last brought up-to-date for Unicode 5.0.
Marion,
there are several interesting issues involved here which denotate the
difficulty of an edge dialog between linguists and multilinguists
(i.e. those considering what is not linguistic in the approach of the
linguistic diversity, signs and texts). Interesting to think about
them as it shows why there may be so much confusion between English
and non-English thinking people (Latin, Asian for example).
1) ISO 10646 is supposed to be of bilingual utterance for the world.
We obviously do not understand bilingual in the sameway first. You
look at the English text to extract the semantic from its pragmatic.
I look at the enonciative operation having resulted in a bi-lingual
utterance in order to understand the unique representation authors
wanted to impress on the reader.
2) the notion of "International Standard" is a compromise
for "Norme" in French. The same as "Norme" in French is a confusion
for Standard in other cases, many "norms" actually being standards.
This is a confusion based upon old terminology, before globalisation.
Actually norms and standards are two different things and both can be
local or international. Norms are related to what normally is.
Standards are related what can be done from them, which will be
interoperable/interintelligible from taking advantage from norms.
3) What you point out is that the text actually is trilingual as
English, Anglo-American and French. Anglo-American is the language it
is written in the text you read [US Version] (what does not mean it
has been actually solely thought in English).
4) My point is that in being published out of a bilingual process it
is expected to be nearer from a its own metalingual architectonic.
What Asmus implies is that the ISO 10646 he uses is, from his point
of view, a US document; and does not care about the pragmatic being
involved). In addition he fails to consider that the French version
is more worked on and probably more metalinguistic and more advanced
that his US copy [because he says that translators are good, so they
can easily chose the best notional occurrences, and add (or have to
add) metalinguistic value (moreover that it is more common in
metaductive French than in inductive English).
It means that the ISO process has not been respected in order to get
a polynym document (cross-language synonymy and quality), i.e; able
to be better translated in different other languages. The French
document is more advanced and there is no feed back of it into the
English version. This is something we oberved in ISO 639-3 : the
itarative bi-lingual quality assurance process has not properly
worked. This creates problem in that particular case because they did
not want to publish a face to face version which would help
comparing. And because the French version is often favored as more
precise (language and actual ISO publication process) when
translating in other languages.
Thank you for this very speaking example of the polynymic issue.
jfc
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