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The Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines
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Allow `@scope` in `//profileDesc/langUsage/language` #2516

Open cthomasdta opened 6 months ago

cthomasdta commented 6 months ago

Following the thread via TEI Mailing starting here List https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=TEI-L;dea9ab8d.2311, we propose to allow @scope in //profileDesc/langUsage/language to annotate the sole/major/minor language used in a document.

The existing @usage attribute is not sufficient here, especially since %-Values are hard to determine with the exactitude the attribute use seems to be suggesting, and can hardly be determined with some degree of reliability at all before the text is transcribed. But it would be no problem, and also be efficient because we use an existing attribute and its proposed values, if the @scope attribute was allowed here, with its values "sole", "major" and "minor".

To quote from my initial message via TEI-L:

Currently, @scope in this function is available in <handNote> and "specifies how widely this hand is used in the manuscript" (https://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-att.handFeatures.html#tei_att.scope). We would suggest that @scope be made available in <language>, as well, to specify "how widely this language is used in the manuscript [or document in general]".

ebeshero commented 6 months ago

Thanks @cthomasdta! The proposal made sense to me when you posted it on the TEI-L. Considering how to implement, I think it doesn't make sense to add language to att.dimensions since that's designated for physical dimensions of a document. If we do this, I think we would add @scope directly to language.

But I wonder if this is necessary? We have textLang, which seems to include simple verbal explanations of the languages in a document. https://tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-textLang.html

Comparing the use of textLang vs. @scope on language, I do think @scope provides a little more precision, so I endorse this proposal and think we should proceed.

sydb commented 6 months ago

I think I generally agree with @ebeshero , except to say that we want a version of the @scope of att.handFeatures, not that of att.dimensions, anyway. My instinct is to factor out @scope from att.handFeatures to its own class (att.impreciseScope or some such), and then ask that both <language> and att.handFeatures claim membership in the new class.