Request for variant subtag fr 16th-c 17th-c

[Michael Everson]

At 14:01 -0500 2006-12-12, CE Whitehead wrote:

>If you read my description of the language you will see, as I have 
>now noted 3 times, that 17th century French includes elements of 
>16th century French but has modernized a bit; and has incorporated 
>many words from the Americas such as cannot.

Languages change, and they do not change on New Year's of particular centuries.

>16th century French is Middle French but with some spelling changes 
>and the language has become more widespread.

Are the dates of 16th-century French 1500-01-01 to 1599-12-31? Or 
whatever, since the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582.

>Reject the tags if you wish; I will send the request again.
>
>Do you speak French?  Parlez vous francais couramment?

Yes.

>Do you know much about the language and literature, have you studied 
>it?  Est-ce que vous connaissez la langue francaise et les lettres 
>francaises un petit peu au moins?  Est-ce que vous les avez etudiees?

Actually, I took courses in Romance Philology at University and in 
particular a  course in the history of the French language. Oath of 
Strasbourg, chansons de geste....

>I've given you descriptions of French as it was spoken in these 
>centuries in section 6 of my request for the tags (I've just 
>submitted a new request; there is now information for 16th century 
>French).

Is it possible to describe these language variants without using centuries?

Do members of this group think that century subtags are a good idea?
-- 
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com