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

CE Whitehead cewcathar at hotmail.com
Thu Dec 14 21:49:30 CET 2006


>There's a big difference here, though.  By adding a region like "GB" or a 
>variant like "scouse" (or arguably even "boont"), you have not 
>fundamentally changed the identity of the language; it's still English, and 
>still tagged as such.
>
>By contrast, in proposing "16thc" C.E. specifically meant to create an 
>"[a]lternate tag for frm so that literature in frm which is readable to 
>modern French speakers can be accessed with requests for literature in fr." 
>  That is tantamount to overruling the decision of ISO 639-2/RA to consider 
>"fr" and "frm" as different languages, which I am confident is not 
>something we want to do.

Hi, actually I want that to be an option to overrule the difference;
but I have decided to amend my proposal so that both tags can apply to 
either fr or frm; I guess I want the decision as to whether the French in a 
document can be accessed as modern French to be left up to the tagger.

16th century French is in fact Middle French though it is the most modern 
variety of it and it is perfectly accessible.

17th century French is Modern French but with enough of Middle French that 
it is often pretty in-between and definitely tagging it as frm needs to be 
an option though I do not like that tag (I would have preferred fr-moyen  
but it was not my vote; I was not involved at that time).  (I'm trying to 
remember if I have ever seen a 17th century text that was in completely 
modern French but my books are all in my locker in Tallahassee; I've seen a 
number that are mixed, that have some spelling variation.)

I am hoping also that these new tags prompt people to discuss tagging 
Elizabethan English which is different that modern English but which you 
would never tag as enm.

--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar at hotmail.com

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