[Dspace-general] "language" usage

[David Palmer]

In the Dspace "full item record" view, it shows a "language" field on the
right side of the screen for every DC element.  The default for this is
"en_US".  Because it has become confusing for us, I am considering putting
everything to blank "--".  Or, is there some use for this language value on
each element of the Dublin Core?

I consider that,

1) there is already a DC element in the record for language; ex.,
- language = chi
- language.iso = zh_HK
So, why must there be a specific & repeated language indication for every DC
element in the record?

2) What to put into the language value on an individual DC element when it
uses a Romanization scheme of Chinese, such as Hanyu Pinyin (LC standard)?
Should I put "zh"?  If so, will there be confusion when one record holds
both Chinese vernacular script, and Romanized Hanyu Pinyin?  Both of these
will show "zh", yes?

3) This language value on each DC element, in the case of "en_US, en_UK, &
en_HK", or in, "fr_FR & fr_CA", only indicates orthographical differences,
but not encoding of script type nor publication place?  But in the case of
zh_TW, zh_HK, & zh_ZH (or zh_CN?), this is not relevant?  The zh codes do
not indicate 
	A) encoding schemes (BIG5, GB, EACC, CCCII, etc) on vernacular
script, nor 
	B) "simplifed character" or "traditional character" on vernacular
script, nor 
	C) type of Romanization used on romanization.

4) to go to an extreme, what codes would I show for a Japanese title shown
in these 7 various representations?
- Kanji
- Hiragana
- Katagana
- Romanized
- Arabicized (using Arabic script to show Japanese pronounciation)
- Cyrillcized (using Cyrillic script to show Japanese pronunciation)
- translated into Eng

Or, should we make the zh codes meaningful by creating a value such as
zh_HK.utf8,  Or, zh_HK.pinyin?

Thanks
David Palmer
HKU