German as used in Liechtenstein

[JFC (Jefsey) Morfin]

At 05:34 23/12/2004, John Cowan wrote:
>JFC (Jefsey) Morfin scripsit:
> > IMHO tagging must result from the choice of the granularity of the
> > reference dimensions (ISO  639-3, UN/LOCODE - which extends ISO 3166 -
> > Unicode - etc.) and from a semantic permitting to support a neuronal use
> > (the same as there are macrolanguages, ISO 3166 is a macrosociogeographic
> > approach of UN/LOCODE, etc) and information inclusion to permit further
> > data mining.
>
>Except in very restricted contexts (e.g. dialect geography), specifying
>the location of a language to higher granularity than a nation is not
>useful.  It is nation-states that prescribe official orthographies,
>when they exist at all (many languages have none).

Dear John,
I am afraid you are not reading me. I assume nothing. I consider a standard 
tagging generation procedure, not a specific one shot RFC 3066 tagging. I 
am talking of the way to address any exceptional need. Otherwise 
exceptional needs cannot be addressed as too costly while complex and more 
general needs do not benefit from the experience accumulated by these 
"exceptional needs". Otherwise as soon as there will be a parallel need, 
there will be another un consistent solution. The interest in OSI standards 
is that there are standard.

> > There should be no debate about the German used in Liechtenstein, only an
> > existing database entry updated when necessary by a local authoritative
> > source.
>
>Often such sources do not exist.  English is official in Canada and
>Cameroon, for example, but not in the U.S. or the U.K., so no
>authoritative source for its use in the latter two countries can be found.
>Nor are there authoritative dictionaries of English.

The problem is not "often such sources do not exist" :
- we/you have no authority to decide this and replace them
- when they exist they are to be supported
- when they do not exist they must be permitted to emerge

IMHO, the IETF is not to rule but to serve the world? The people of the 
world are authoritative. Standard should permit them to exercise it. 
Otherwise they will take contol, like for NATs, for P2P, like for VoIP, etc.