[rdfweb-dev] languages
Peter Saint-Andre
stpeter at jabber.org
Fri Aug 1 20:12:39 UTC 2003
On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 04:04:20PM +0100, Ian Davis wrote:
> A person can speak, read, write or understand one or more languages.
> Each language can independently be spoken, read, written or understood
> with varying proficiencies. A person may rank their preferred
> languages for each mode of communication.
>
> Maybe proficiencies aren't absolute but are relative.
>
> Here's one suggestion for implementing this:
>
> <lang:speaks>
> <lang:LanguageProficiency rdf:ID="spokenEnglish">
> <lang:iso639Code>en</lang:iso639Code>
> </lang:LanguageProficiency>
> </lang:speaks>
>
> <lang:speaks>
> <lang:LanguageProficiency rdf:ID="spokenFrench">
> <lang:iso639Code>fr</lang:iso639Code>
> <lang:wouldPrefer rdf:resource="#spokenEnglish" />
> </lang:LanguageProficiency>
> </lang:speaks>
>
> <lang:speaks>
> <lang:LanguageProficiency rdf:ID="spokenGerman">
> <lang:iso639Code>de</lang:iso639Code>
> <lang:wouldPrefer rdf:resource="#spokenEnglish" />
> <lang:wouldPrefer rdf:resource="#spokenFrench" />
> </lang:LanguageProficiency>
> </lang:speaks>
>
> An agent trying to determine the best common language picks one that
> both parties understand at random. It checks the wouldPrefer property
> to see if there's a better language that they both speak. Continue
> until no more wouldPrefer properties.
>
> Just more ingredients for the pot...
And tasty ingredients at that. :)
I like the idea of a cardinal ranking of language preferences. I'm a bit
confused by the LanguageProficiency class, since it does not seem to
capture my proficiency level (perhaps that really isn't necessary, but I
expected it to be there given the class name).
One nit about Leandro's schema is that it explicitly forbids the use of
ISO 639-2 identifiers, whereas I'd like to include those since I read
Ancient Greek and there is no 639-1 identifier for that language.
Peter
--
Peter Saint-Andre
Jabber Software Foundation
http://www.jabber.org/people/stpeter.php
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