BCP 47 Extension T - Transformed Content
draft-davis-t-langtag-ext-07

Abstract

This document specifies an Extension to BCP 47 which provides subtags for specifying the source language or script of transformed content, including content that has been transliterated, transcribed, or translated, or in some other way influenced by the source. It also provides for additional information used for identification.

Status of this Memo

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Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

1.  Introduction
    1.1.  Requirements Language
2.  BCP47 Required Information
    2.1.  Overview
    2.2.  Structure
    2.3.  Canonicalization
    2.4.  BCP47 Registration Form
    2.5.  Field Definitions
    2.6.  Registration of Field Subtags
    2.7.  Registration of Additional Fields
    2.8.  Committee Responses to Registration Proposals
    2.9.  Machine-Readable Data
3.  Acknowledgements
4.  IANA Considerations
5.  Security Considerations
6.  References
    6.1.  Normative References
    6.2.  Informative References
§  Authors' Addresses

1.  Introduction

[BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.) permits the definition and registration of language tag extensions "that contain a language component and are compatible with applications that understand language tags". This document defines an extension for specifying the source of content that has been transformed, including text that has been transliterated, transcribed, or translated, or in some other way influenced by the source. It may be used in queries to request content that has been transformed. The "singleton" identifier for this extension is 't'.

Language tags, as defined by [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.), are useful for identifying the language of content. There are mechanisms for specifying variant subtags for special purposes. However, these variants are insufficient for specifying content that has undergone transformations, including content that has been transliterated, transcribed, or translated. The correct interpretation of the content may depend upon knowledge of the conventions used for the transformation.

Suppose that Italian or Russian cities on a map are transcribed for Japanese users. Each name needs to be transliterated into katakana using rules appropriate for the specific source and target language. When tagging such data, it is important to be able to indicate not only the resulting content language ("ja" in this case), but also the source language.

Transforms such as transliterations may vary depending not only on the basis of the source and target script, but also on the source and target language. Thus the Russian <U+041F U+0443 U+0442 U+0438 U+043D> (which corresponds to the Cyrillic <PE, U, TE, I, EN>) transliterates into "Putin" in English but "Poutine" in French. The identifier could be used to indicate a desired mechanical transformation in an API, or could be used to tag data that has been converted (mechanically or by hand) according to a transliteration method.

In addition, many different conventions have arisen for how to transform text, even between the same languages and scripts. For example, "Gaddafi" is commonly transliterated from Arabic to English as any of (G/Q/K/Kh)a(d/dh/dd/dhdh/th/zz)af(i/y). Some examples of standardized conventions used for transcribing or transliterating text include:

a.

United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)

b.

US Library of Congress (LOC)

c.

US Board on Geographic Names (BGN)

d.

Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST)

e.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

The usage of this extension is not limited to formal transformations, and may include other instances where the content is in some other way influenced by the source. For example, this extension could be used to designate a request for a speech recognizer that is tailored specifically for 2nd-language speakers who are 1st-language speakers of a particular language (e.g. a recognizer for "English spoken with a Chinese accent").

1.1.  Requirements Language

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

2.  BCP47 Required Information

2.1.  Overview

Identification of transformed content can be done using the 't' extension defined in this document. This extension is formed by the 't' singleton followed by a sequence of subtags that would form a language tag as defined by [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.). This allows for the source language or script to be specified to the degree of precision required. There are restrictions on the sequence of subtags. They MUST form a regular, valid, canonical language tag, and MUST neither include extensions nor private use sequences introduced by the singleton 'x'. Where only the script is relevant (such as identifying a script-script transliteration) then 'und' is used for the primary language subtag.

For example:

Note that the sequence of subtags governed by 't' cannot contain a singleton (a single-character subtag), because that would start a new extension. For example, the tag "ja-t-i-ami" does not indicate that the source is in "i-ami", because "i-ami" is not a regular language tag in [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.). That tag would express an empty 't' extension followed by an 'i' extension.

The 't' extension is not intended for use in structured data that already provides separate source and target language identifiers. For example, this is the case in localization interchange formats such as XLIFF. In such cases, it would be inappropriate to use "ja-t-it" for the target language tag because the source language tag "it" would already be present in the data. Instead one would use the language tag "ja".

As noted earlier, it is sometimes necessary to indicate additional information about a transformation. This additional information is optionally supplied after the source in a series of one or more fields, where each field consists of a field separator subtag followed by one or more non-separator subtags. Each field separator subtag consists of a single letter followed by a single digit.

A transformation mechanism is an optional field that indicates the specification used for the transformation, such as "UNGEGN" for the the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names transliterations and transcriptions. It uses the 'm0' field separator followed by certain subtags.

For example:

The field separator subtags such as 'm0' were chosen because they are short, visually distinctive, and cannot occur in a language subtag (outside of an extension and after 'x'), thus eliminating the potential for collision or confusion with the source language tag.

The field subtags are defined by Section 3 of Unicode Technical Standard #35: Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.) [UTS35] (LDML), the main specification for the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) project. As required by BCP 47, subtags follow the language tag ABNF and other rules for the formation of language tags and subtags, are restricted to the ASCII letters and digits, are not case sensitive, and do not exceed eight characters in length.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This new facility has been accepted by the Unicode CLDR committee for incorporation into the next versions of CLDR and LDML, parallel with the structure of the 'u' extension [RFC6067] (Davis, M., Ed., Phillips, A., Ed., and Y. Umaoka, Ed., “BCP 47 Extension U,” September 2010.), for which it is already the maintaining authority. The data and specification will be available by the time this internet draft has been approved.

The LDML specification is available over the Internet and at no cost, and is available via a royalty-free license at http://unicode.org/copyright.html. LDML is versioned, and each version of LDML is numbered, dated, and stable. Extension subtags, once defined by LDML, are never retracted or substantially changed in meaning.

The maintaining authority for the 't' extension is the Unicode Consortium:

2.2.  Structure

The subtags in the 't' extension are of the following form:

t-ext=    "t"                      ; Extension
          (("-" lang *("-" field)) ; Source + optional field(s)
          / 1*("-" field))         ; Field(s) only (no source)

lang=     language                 ; BCP47, with restrictions
          ["-" script]
          ["-" region]
          *("-" variant)

field=    sep 1*("-" 3*8alphanum)  ; With restrictions

sep=      ALPHA DIGIT              ; Subtag separators
alphanum= ALPHA / DIGIT

where <language>, <script>, <region>, and <variant> rules are specified in [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.), <ALPHA> and <DIGIT> rules - in [RFC5234] (Crocker, Ed., “Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF,” 2008.).

Description and restrictions:

a.

The 't' extension MUST have at least one subtag.

b.

The 't' extension normally starts with a source language tag, which MUST be a regular, canonical language tag as specified by [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.). Tags described by the 'irregular' production in BCP 47 MUST NOT be used to form the language tag. The source language tag MAY be omitted: some field values do not require it.

c.

There is optionally a sequence of fields, where each field has a separator followed by a sequence of one or more subtags. Two identical field separators MUST NOT be present in the language tag.

d.

The order of the fields in a 't' extension is not significant. The order of subtags within a field is significant. (See Section 2.3 (Canonicalization) Canonicalization.)

e.

The 't' subtag fields are defined by Section 3 of Unicode Technical Standard #35: Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.) [UTS35].

2.3.  Canonicalization

As required by [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.), the use of uppercase or lowercase letters is not significant in the subtags used in this extension. The canonical form for all subtags in the extension is lowercase, with the fields ordered by the separators, alphabetically. The order of subtags within a field is significant, and MUST NOT be changed in the process of canonicalizing.

2.4.  BCP47 Registration Form

Per RFC 5646, Section 3.7 (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.) [BCP47]:

%%
Identifier: t
Description: Specifying Transformed Content
Comments: Subtags for the identification of content that has been
transformed, including but not limited to:
transliteration, transcription, and translation.
Added: 2010-mm-dd
RFC: [TBD]
Authority: Unicode Consortium
Contact_Email: cldr-contact@unicode.org
Mailing_List: cldr-users@unicode.org
URL: http://www.unicode.org/Public/cldr/latest/core.zip
%%

2.5.  Field Definitions

Assignment of 't' field subtags is determined by the Unicode CLDR Technical Committee, in accordance with the policies and procedures in http://www.unicode.org/consortium/tc-procedures.html, and subject to the Unicode Consortium Policies on http://www.unicode.org/policies/policies.html.

Assignments that can be made by successive versions of LDML (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.) [UTS35] by the Unicode Consortium without requiring a new RFC include:

• The allocation of new field separator subtags for use after the 't' extension.
• The allocation of subtags valid after a field separator subtag.
• The addition of subtag aliases and descriptions.
• The modification of subtag descriptions.

Changes to the syntax or meaning of the 't' extension would require a new RFC that obsoletes this document; such an RFC would break stability, and would thus be contrary to the policies of the Unicode Consortium.

At the time this document was published, one field was specified in [UTS35] (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.): the transform mechanism. That field is summarized here:

a.

The transform mechanism consists of a sequence of subtags starting with the 'm0' separator followed by one or more mechanism subtags. Each mechanism subtag has a length of 3 to 8 alphanumeric characters. The sequence as a whole provides an identification of the specification for the transform, such as the mechanism subtag 'ungegn' in "und-Cyrl-t-und-latn-m0-ungegn". In many cases, only one mechanism subtag is necessary, but multiple subtags MAY be defined in [UTS35] (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.) where necessary.

b.

Any purely numeric subtag is a representation of a date in the Gregorian calendar. It MAY occur in any mechanism field, but it SHOULD only be used where necessary. If it does occur:

• it MUST occur as the final subtag in the field
• it MUST NOT be the only subtag in the field
• it MUST only consist of a sequence of digits of the form YYYY, YYYYMM, or YYYYMMDD
• it SHOULD be as short as possible

Note: The format is related to that of [RFC3339] (Klyne, Ed. and Newman, Ed., “Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps,” 2002.), but is not the same. The RFC 3339 full-date won't work because it uses hyphens. The offset ("Z") is not used because the date is a publication date (aka 'floating date'). For more information, see Section 3.3, Floating Time in [W3C‑TimeZones] (Phillips, Ed., “W3C Working Group Note: Working with Time Zones,” July 2011.).

c.

Examples:

• 20110623 represents June 23rd, 2011.
• There are 3 dated versions of the UNGEGN transliteration specification for Hebrew to Latin. They can be represented by the following language tags:
  • und-Hebr-t-und-Latn-m0-ungegn-1972
  • und-Hebr-t-und-Latn-m0-ungegn-1977
  • und-Hebr-t-und-Latn-m0-ungegn-2007
• Suppose that the BGN transliteration specification for Cyrillic to Latin had three versions, dated June 11th, 1999; Dec 30th, 1999; and May 1st, 2011. In that case, the corresponding first two DATE subtags would require months to be distinctive (199906 and 199912), but the last subtag would only require the year (2011).

d.

Some mechanisms may use a versioning system that is not distinguished by date, or not by date alone. In the latter case, the version will be of a form specified by [UTS35] (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.) for that mechanism. For example, if the mechanism XXX uses versions of the form v21a, then a tag could look like "ja-t-it-m0-xxx-v21a". If there are multiple subversions distinguished by date, then a tag could look like "ja-t-it-m0-xxx-v21a-2007".

A language tag with the 't' extension MAY be used to request a specific transform of content. In such a case, the recipient SHOULD return content that corresponds as closely as feasible to the requested transform, including the specification of the mechanism. For example, if the request is ja-t-it-m0-xxx-v21a-2007, and the recipient has content corresponding to both ja-t-it-m0-xxx-v21a and ja-t-it-m0-xxx-v21b-2009, then the v21a version would be preferred. As is the case for language matching as discussed in [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.), different implementations MAY have different measures of "closeness".

2.6.  Registration of Field Subtags

Registration of transform mechanisms is requested by filing a ticket at cldr.unicode.org. The proposal in the ticket MUST contain the following information:

Proposals for clarifications of descriptions or additional aliases may also be requested by filing a ticket.

The committee MAY define a template for submissions that requests more information, if it is found that such information would be useful in evaluating proposals.

2.7.  Registration of Additional Fields

In the event that it proves necessary to add an additional field (such as 'm2'), it can be requested by filing a ticket at cldr.unicode.org. The proposal in the ticket MUST contain a full description of the proposed field semantics and subtag syntax, and MUST be conform to the ABNF syntax for "field" presented in Section 2.2 (Structure).

2.8.  Committee Responses to Registration Proposals

The committee MUST post each proposal publicly within 2 weeks after reception, to allow for comments. The committee must respond publicly to each proposal within 4 weeks after reception.

The response MAY:

• request more information or clarification
• accept the proposal, optionally with modifications to the subtag or description
• reject the proposal, because of significant objections raised on the mailing list or due to problems with constraints in this document or in [UTS35] (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.)

Accepted tickets result in a new entry in the machine-readable CLDR BCP47 data, or in the case of a clarified description, modifications to the description attribute value for an existing entry.

2.9.  Machine-Readable Data

EDITORIAL NOTE: The following parallels the structure used for the 'u' extension [RFC6067] (Davis, M., Ed., Phillips, A., Ed., and Y. Umaoka, Ed., “BCP 47 Extension U,” September 2010.), for which the Unicode Consortium is the maintaining authority. The data and specification will be available by the time this internet draft has been approved. The description field is in the process of being added to CLDR.

Beginning with CLDR version 1.7.2, machine-readable files are available listing the data defined for BCP47 extensions for each successive version of [UTS35] (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.). These releases are listed on http://cldr.unicode.org/index/downloads. Each release has an associated data directory of the form "http://unicode.org/Public/cldr/<version>", where "<version>" is replaced by the release number. For example, for version 1.7.2, the "core.zip" file is located at http://unicode.org/Public/cldr/1.7.2/core.zip. The most recent version is always identified by the version "latest" and can be accessed by the URL in Section 2.4 (BCP47 Registration Form).

Inside the "core.zip" file, the directory "common/bcp47" contains the data files listing the valid attributes, keys, and types for each successive version of [UTS35] (Davis, M., “Unicode Technical Standard #35: Locale Data Markup Language (LDML),” December 2007.). Each data file list the keys and types relevant to that topic. For example, mechanism.xml contains the subtags (types) for the 't' mechanisms.

The XML structure lists the keys, such as <key extension="t" name="m0" alias="collation" description="Transliteration extension mechanism">, with subelements for the types, such as <type name="ungegn" description="United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names"/>. The currently defined attributes for the mechanisms include:

The file for the transform extension is "transform.xml". The initial version of that file contains the following information.

<key extension="t" name="m0" description=
      "Transliteration extension mechanism"/>
   <type name="ungegn" description=
      "United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names"/>
   <type name="alaloc" description=
      "American Library Association-Library of Congress"/>
   <type name="bgn" description=
      "US Board on Geographic Names"/>
   <type name="mcst" description=
      "Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism"/>
   <type name="iso" description=
      "International Organization for Standardization"/>
   <type name="din" description=
      "Deutsches Institut fuer Normung"/>
   <type name="gost" description=
      "Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology
       and Certification"/>
</key>

To get the version information in XML when working with the data files, the XML parser must be validating. When the 'core.zip' file is unzipped, the 'dtd' directory will be at the same level as the 'bcp47' directory; that is required for correct validation. For each release after CLDR 1.8, types introduced in that release are also marked in the data files by the XML attribute "since", such as in the following example:

<type name="adp" since="1.9"/>

The data is also currently maintained in a source code repository, with each release tagged, for viewing directly without unzipping. For example, see:

• http://unicode.org/repos/cldr/tags/release-1-7-2/common/bcp47/
• http://unicode.org/repos/cldr/tags/release-1-8/common/bcp47/

For more information, see http://cldr.unicode.org/index/bcp47-extension.

3.  Acknowledgements

Thanks to John Emmons and the rest of the Unicode CLDR Technical Committee for their work in developing the BCP 47 subtags for LDML.

4.  IANA Considerations

This document will require IANA to insert the record of Section 2.4 (BCP47 Registration Form) into the Language Extensions Registry, according to Section 3.7, Extensions and the Extensions Registry of "Tags for Identifying Languages" in [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.). Per Section 5.2 of [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.), there might be occasional (rare) requests by the Unicode Consortium (the "Authority" listed in the record) for maintenance of this record. Changes that can be submitted to IANA without the publication of a new RFC are limited to modification of the Comments, Contact_Email, Mailing_List, and URL fields. Any such requested changes MUST use the domain 'unicode.org' in any new addresses or URIs, MUST explicitly cite this document (so that IANA can reference these requirements), and MUST originate from the 'unicode.org' domain. The domain or authority can only be changed via a new RFC.

This document does not require IANA to create or maintain a new registry or otherwise impact IANA.

5.  Security Considerations

The security considerations for this extension are the same as those for [BCP47] (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.). See RFC 5646, Section 6, Security Considerations (Davis, M., Ed. and A. Phillips, Ed., “Tags for the Identification of Language (BCP47),” September 2009.) [BCP47].

6.  References

6.1. Normative References

6.2. Informative References

Authors' Addresses