A study in XML culture and evolution

There is a spoken language in Africa - I believe it is Malinke but
memory (and Google) may have failed me here - which has evolved a very
interesting alternative to designating people by name. A hyper-pronoun
system if you like.

Speakers of Malinke prefer not to name people directly in speech. To do
so would give the evil spirits a direct connection with the named
individual. Not good. Instead, speakers of Malinke embark on a
circumlocutory route to identifying the individual. For example if Mr. X
has just come in through the door, he might be identified in speech as
"the man who has just come through the door" rather than "Mr. X". Thus
throwing the evil spirits off the hunt.

Closer to home for me, the Irish language makes it well nigh impossible
to say "hello" without invoking God. In Irish, "God be with you"[1] is
the most common form of greeting. Without even thinking about it, Irish
speakers go around the place invoking the powers that be, to look kindly
on the people they meet and greet. A sort of built-in protection
mechanism against the forces of evil, right in the heart of the
language.

These are examples, of course, of culture impacting human language.
Nothing controversial there. More likely to be controversial is the
assertion I am about to make, that culture impacts computer languages
too. XML provides a good example of this phenomenon.

Mr. X comes through the door as in the Malinke example. How would we
capture the details of Mr. X in a computer program - say a Time and
Attendance system?

We might start - as so many HR and CRM systems do - with the idea that
people have names and addresses. But what is a name? What is it about a
name that distinguishes it from an address?

Perhaps a name is nothing more than a synonym for the innermost part of
an address. Let's use my address as an example and hope the evil spirits
do not read ITworld articles:

Sean McGrath
Propylon Ltd.
45 Blackbourne Square
Rathfarnham Gate
Dublin 14
Ireland
Europe
Earth

Let's turn this upside down:

Earth
Europe
Ireland
Dublin 14
Rathfarnham Gate
45 Blackbourne Square
Propylon Ltd.
Sean McGrath

The latter form of my address is a form that Malinke speakers would
perhaps prefer. It consists of a layer by layer zooming in on an
individual through ever tighter - ever more qualified - contexts. The
"name" is nothing more than the tightest qualifier. Malinke speakers
could stop short of that final, innermost part of the address and say
something like "The CTO" or "The tall bearded guy with the faraway look
in his eyes" etc. Thus uniquely identifying me.

There is an entire culture in IT that is Malinke-like in its approach to
identifying things.

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