Language Identifier List Comments, updated

[JFC (Jefsey) Morfin]

At 19:35 27/12/2004, John Cowan wrote:
>JFC (Jefsey) Morfin scripsit:
> > Please reread what you just wrote. "there is no reason to qualify 
> [Catalan]
> > with a region subtag": only an acknowledged Catalan language authority can
> > say that. etc.
>
>That's equivalent to the statement that only an acknowledged English language
>authority can say that English comes in national orthographic variants, which
>is absurd for two reasons:  (a) anyone can see that this is so by inspecting
>various English-language texts,

anyone ? "shaping te world" is not enforced yet.

>and (b) there is no acknowledged English language authority, never has 
>been, and almost certainly never will be.

So, do not make the IANA one.
But there is one in Internet terms. This is the .UK ccTLD Manager for en-UK 
and the USNIC for en-US.

> > You are in the process of defining the language of the
> > countries. What IETF can only do is to say "if there is a need to qualify
> > Catalan this is the way to do it".
>
>That is what the RFC says.  Tex's list is an attempt to explain in practical
>terms and without normative authority whether or not Catalan really needs to
>be qualified by country.

We agree. My maping is however different from Tex's and this should be of 
interest for no one in the IETF.

> > The RFC 1591/3490 define that authorities, and IANA acknowledges them, for
> > the only Internet governed language related issue which is IDNA (this is
> > discussed below).
>
>Language tags are very widely used throughout the industry.

We are not the "industry" (whatever the industry may be). We discuss a 
document in the Internet standard process.

> > The IDNA use the BCP47 (ie. RFC 3066 which is discussed here) to define 
> the
> > IDN language table.
>
>But IDNA is not the only customer for RFC 3066, far from it.

I agree. But IDNA is subject to IANA procedures Phillips-08.txt will affect.

> > Please review:
> > http://www.iana.org/assignments/idn/
> >
> > Phillips-08 draft ABNF is similar but conflicts with the ubmission 
> template
> > of this IANA procedure which is not in ABNF:
> > http://www.iana.org/assignments/idn/registry-language-template.txt
>
>It is not reasonable to expect an IANA procedure to refer to a
>revision of an RFC that is still in I-D state.  I expect that the
>referent of BCP 47 will be updated in due course after the new draft
>is published as an RFC.

The draft only extend the ABNF. There is there a IANA discrepancy to 
address by Pillips-08.txt.


> > You seem to say that language
> > tags which are meaningless to you are irrelevant, while I say this is not
> > our cup of tea and we are not to care if a language tag is absurd, except
> > to document an escape procedure if the user finds it absurd for _him_. I
> > submit that we only have to provide an ABNF (what the draft does) and that
> > escape procedure (it does not document).
>
>The current I-D does exactly what you want.

As I say: yes for ABNF. No for an escape procedure.

 > I never said that anything should be "forced", but that 2 alpha overlaps
> > the ccTLD list creating user's confusion. There is a need for a simple
> > formatted contextual cultural definition. It cannot be 2 and 3 alphas. It
> > has to be 2 + "*" or 3. It is likely that most of the new usages will
> > stabilize using 3 letters (over 7250 3 letters tags, a few 2 letters tags
> > will be odd and resource consuming in new applications).
>
>Your facts are incorrect, and your assumptions are unfounded.

I do not understand what is incorrect. My assumptions could be
said unfounded only in a few years, or is there something I missed?
All the best
jfc