encode mixing of languages

[ingoboerner]

At the DraCor Summit we discussed how mixing of language in plays should be encoded. Please add examples and ideas as comments.

[sreyfe]

There is a lot of language mixing in Yiddish literature, but Yiddish is also a very mixed language, so it is difficult to distinguish between "language mixing" and the innate mixedness of the language. For YiDraCor, I've generally been marking as <foreign> those words and phrases which are not found in canonical dictionaries. Methodology detailed here and here.

I've also been thinking about what to do for the xml:lang attribute. Hebrew and Aramaic are conceived as a unit in Yiddish ("loshn-koydesh"). The Hebrew iso code does not really capture this, nor do the various codes for Aramaic. Also, one often comes across very mixed slavic utterances which are not easily collapsible to "rus," "ukr," etc...

An interesting case is the speech of Edelman in Yudale. It is highly Germanizing, so much so that it could be argued that it's more a Yiddishizing German than a Germanizing Yiddish...

It would be nice to find good ways to encode these complicated language mixtures.

ps. Lucas van der Deijl just mentioned Dutchified versions of Spanish, for example, in the Dutch corpus

[cmil]

See the Dracor Barcamp discussion https://yopad.eu/p/multilingual_planning.

[juliajbeine]

@sreyfe, @DanilSko, here is a first draft based on our discussion at the DraCor Summit barcamp.

A play may feature words, speeches or entire scenes in a language other than the main language of the play. Examples for this phenomenon may be found in NeoLatDraCor, RomDraCor, UDraCor, or YiDraCor. The passages are encoded according to the following guidelines.

Add the xml:lang attribute to the highest possible element, e.g. a sp or div element.

If there is no element to add the xml:lang attribute to, use the foreign tag to mark up the respective word or passage. This case may apply to single words or sentences within a speech, stage direction, or similar. The foreign element is used to mark up words or passages in another language. For words or passages in a dialect other than the main language of a play, use the distinct element.