LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM: Variant for a Latin-based alphabet for Idíl-Ural (Qazan) Tatar (iqtel)

Reshat Sabiq tatar.iqtelif.i18n at gmail.com
Tue Sep 26 06:38:58 CEST 2006


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LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM
1. Name of requester:	Reshat Sabiq
2. E-mail address of requester:	tatar.iqtelif.i18n at gmail.com
3. Subtag to be registered:	iqtel
4. Type of Registration:
   [ ] language
   [x] variant
5. Description of subtag (in English or transcribed into ASCII):
Idíl-Ural-Qirim Tatar Elifbasi
6. Intended meaning of the subtag:
Abbreviation of IQTElif, which is the ASCII-based name of a version of
Latin-based alphabet for Volga-Ural (Qazan) Tatar.
7. Recommended prefix(es) of subtag (for variants):
tt, tat
8. Native name of the language or variation (transcribed into ASCII):
Idíl-Ural-Qirim Tatar Elifbasi
9. Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatar_alphabet#.C4.B0QTElif
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tat

10. Any other relevant information:
While Latin alphabet has been officially in use for Crimean Tatar for
many years, there is controversy in the matter of Latin-based Tatar
alphabet for İdíl-Ural (Qazan) Tatar. One dimension is that there are at
least 6 different Latin-based alphabets in use for Idíl-Ural (Qazan)
Tatar. The other dimension is that the Moscow authorities, in a move
that constitutes a human rights violation, have lately outlawed any
switch to Latin, or any other non-Cyrillic, alphabet.
This makes Latin-based l10n and i18n work for Qazan Tatar very
difficult, but at the same time, İdíl-Ural Tatars clearly prefer Latin
alphabet, and electronic usage is almost entirely Latin-based; although
 multiple variants of Latin alphabet are de-facto in use. However, any
serious l10n project based on İQTElif, and I am in the process of
initiating a few, needs to be able to specify that this l10n is
implemented using İQTElif, as opposed to any of the other 5 Latin-based
variants. It needs to be clear for both users and contributors what
variant of Latin alphabet is used in a particular localized application,
desktop, or web page.

IQTElif is based on 3 premises:
1. maximal phonetic correctness
2. conventional characters
3. consistency with Crimean Tatar and other major kindred languages in
terms of Latin-based orthography

I am a user of İQTElif for about 11 years, although have not had any
time to think about serious l10n work until recently.

I hear that GNU libc would require full spelling out of any variant,
which as of now is likely to result in "iqtelif". I would therefore
prefer iqtel as the shortest allowed alphabetic abbreviation, to at
least have the first 5 characters in synch. Five-character subtag
appears to be preferable to seven-character one, for brevity reasons.
Other than this consideration, it doesn't really matter to me what
exactly subtag is used. Hopefully eventually the 2 naming conventions
(GNU libc and IANA) will merge at some point (i realize that if 5-code
subtag is approved now, it will most likely require more latitude in GNU
libc with regards to abbreviations, which may or may not ever materialize).

The population figures on ethnologue.com are a tad confusing. While I am
not associated with the missionary organization that prepared the
following data, it appears to be more or less accurate, and fairly
consistent with ethnologue's 1989 census figures:
http://www.joshuaproject.net/peoples.php?rop3=109874&sf=population&so=asc
I vaguely remember that there may have been calls for boycott of the
census in 2000, or perhaps the official value is deliberately
understated for some reason. This may explain the low values of the 2000
census on ethnologue.

- --
My public GPG key (ID 0x262839AF) is at: http://keyserver.veridis.com:11371
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