en-GB-oxford LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM
Peter_Constable at sil.org
Peter_Constable at sil.org
Sun Jun 15 22:33:35 CEST 2003
Tex Texin wrote on 06/15/2003 05:42:29 PM:
> I am a little surprised, since I thought tags were supposed to identify
> existing practices, not be the first step in defining a practice
(orpractise)
> that spell-checkers can follow. Isn't that the argument by which
es-americas
> died (or is dieing)?
The way I understand it, es-americas was blocked *in spite of* existing
practice.
> (Btw I am not grinding an axe with es-americas or trying to make a point
about
> it. But I think the points from that discussion are relevant here.)
I think the issues are kind of different. es-americas was really intended
to identify a variety of spanish language usage that isn't the natural
variety of any sub-community of Spanish speakers (but it is acceptable to
multiple sub-communities since it is a least common denominator -- so to
speak -- of their varieties). en-OED, on the other hand, isn't defining a
particular variety; it's intended to identify a particular spelling
convention for English.
The former hasn't been accepted since there has been too much doubt that
such a variety exists (in any sense of that word). The latter, however,
certainly exists (though as Mark has pointed out, some aspects of its
definition -- e.g. c vs. s -- still need to be clarified). Whether we can
point to examples of it's usage is another question, of course, as is how
useful the tag en-oed would be in practice.
> Also, what happens if OED changes its preferrences over time and as the
> language evolves?
The denotation of the tag shouldn't be subject to such changes, I think.
- Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
More information about the Ietf-languages
mailing list