Language

• CURIE: gmeow:Language
• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/Language
• Category: class
• Defined by: gmeow:slices/language
• Box roles: TBox role (What is this?)

A language as a first-class information object with a self-minted IRI: a system of signs/symbols and rules used for communication or computation. Registry-INDEPENDENT — BCP-47/ISO 639/Glottolog/Wikidata are optional alignments (gmeow:languageCode, gmeow:authorityLink, skos:exactMatch), never identity, so a code-less conlang or AI-generated language is fully first-class. Origin, modality and status are open value vocabularies; the scripts it is written in are bound co-equally via gmeow:WritingSystemUsage; its endonym/exonym names are gmeow:Appellation.

Structure

Subclass of: gmeow:InformationObject

Practical Pattern

Use gmeow:Language as a specialized kind of gmeow:InformationObject. Add statement metadata or a standpoint when the assertion needs provenance, confidence, or vantage.

Example Snippets

These snippets are generated from canonical slice examples and trimmed to the Turtle blocks where this term appears.

Multilingual Document

• Source: slices/core/language/examples/multilingual-document.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-core-language-examples-multilingual-document

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: language as a first-class entity. A gmeow:Language is a
# reified individual carrying its gmeow:bcp47Tag — not a bare string column — so a
# document can be gmeow:writtenInLanguage SEVERAL co-equal languages at once
# (a bilingual manual), with no primary language privileged. The Language objects
# are minted (there is no closed enum of languages); the document is an
# InformationObject, the domain of gmeow:writtenInLanguage.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/language/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .

# --- Languages: first-class, BCP-47-tagged. English already exists as the core
#     seed gmeow:langEnglish — reused, not re-minted. Japanese has no seed, so it
#     is minted, declaring its internal private-use tag for @lang annotations.
ex:japanese a gmeow:Language ;
    rdfs:label        "Japanese"@en ;
    gmeow:bcp47Tag    "ja" ;
    gmeow:languageTag "ja" .

Inscription Reading

• Source: slices/extensions/archaeological-evidence/examples/inscription-reading.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-extensions-archaeological-evidence-examples-inscription-reading

# --- Script + language attribution: also a reified, vantage-scoped claim.
ex:cuneiform a gmeow:WritingSystem ; rdfs:label "Cuneiform"@en .
ex:akkadian  a gmeow:Language ; rdfs:label "Akkadian"@en ; gmeow:bcp47Tag "akk" .

Common Companion Terms

gmeow:InformationObject

Projects To

External Equivalences

Equivalent or closely aligned targets: schema, wd

Linkages

Generated from the canonical mapping DSL. SSSOM files are the generated public interchange form for term equivalences.

Term Equivalences

Projection Coverage

Usage Advice

Use when

• Use to mint a language as a first-class IRI rather than a flat code literal — the registry-independent target of gmeow:writtenInLanguage and the anchor of every private-use-language-tag private-use tag, so a code-less conlang or AI-generated language is fully modelled (no privileged language, Principle 9).

Avoid when

• Avoid flattening a language into an inLanguage code string on the content (that is the anti-pattern gmeow:writtenInLanguage replaces) and avoid treating a registry code as identity; codes are alignments via gmeow:languageCode, not the IRI.

How to use

• Mint the Language with a self-minted IRI, give it endonym/exonym gmeow:Appellation names, bind its scripts co-equally through gmeow:WritingSystemUsage, and assert registry coreference with skos:exactMatch plus gmeow:languageCode rather than encoding identity in a code.

Examples

• ex:langTlhingan a gmeow:Language; gmeow:languageCode "tlh"; skos:exactMatch http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q10134.