I guess that George is your given name. Wes is your family name. Hope I am not wrong.:)
-Hui
2013/7/11 George, Wes <wesley.george@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Melinda Shore
[WEG] I think writing language documentation isn't really a good use of IETF resources, even at an individual level, because neither the problem nor the knowledge necessary to address it is specific to the IETF, nor is the problem limited to Mandarin participants. As others have noted, this is just one of many languages represented by IETFers that we'd have to treat similarly.
> I agree
> that this is probably not appropriate for publication as an RFC
> but it would certainly be useful to find someplace for it in the
> wiki. The chairs wiki might be an option but I think it's of
> broader interest and use.
>
> Melinda
Further, an I-D is not a particularly useful format in which to present the info. Raw text in the form of "$phoneme as in $English_word" may not always be helpful, especially to nonnative English speakers who now have to work through two layers of pronunciation. Being able to click on a button to hear sample pronunciations, especially in the case of words where tones matter, is very helpful.
So if pronunciation guides end up in the Wiki or the Tao or some other yet to be written Diversity and Cultural guide hosted within IETF, I think it's more useful to simply reference things already extant instead of generating our own. Those representing the language in question could certainly help us to source and vet the information, but that's much quicker and more efficient than writing it themselves.
Protocol reuse, hurray! :-)
e.g.
http://mandarin.about.com/od/pronunciation/a/How-To-Pronounce-Mandarin-Chinese.htm
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Pronunciation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology
To be clear, I'm not saying that this doesn't expose a real problem, and the draft certainly drew attention to it, but I also don't think that more documentation will solve it, especially since the information is already readily available in more accessible formats. I think what you'll find is that there are two types of folks (in IETF and generally) - those who see an attempt at proper pronunciation and cultural awareness as important and worth making extra effort to learn proactively, and those who believe that if it's an issue, the person on the receiving end will correct them when they get it wrong (and hopefully not repeat the mistake).
Not making a value judgment on either, merely an observation.
Thanks
Wes George
PS: guess which one is my given name and which my surname? Even native English speakers aren't immune from name confusion. :-)
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