Erzgebirgisch Classification Question

[Ciarán Ó Duibhín]

Doug wrote:
> We should register 'erzgeb' only with the Prefix field that will be
> correct in the long term, which is "sxu", and that means we should wait
> until 'sxu' is a valid language subtag, which will happen when RFC
> 4646bis and RFC 4645bis are approved.

What I take from the discussion is that it is *not* known, in the present
state of research, which prefix, if any, will be correct in the long term
for 'erzgeb'.  And if we plump for one now (or soon, in the "sxu" case), the
rules of the game are that it can never be removed.

Until I read the above, I thought that Doug's view was that it is not
critical that the chosen prefix will be correct in the long term:

> Our goal in registering variants like 'erzgeb' is to allow legitimate
> language variations to be tagged, not to provide tags with perfect
> mnemonic or language-hierarchy value.

On that view, it comes down to whether "sxu" or "de" looks better in the
present state of our knowledge.  Thomas has magnanimously accepted "sxu",
but back in January he gave his reasons for regarding Erzgebirgisch as a
form of Franconian (and I assume Franconian would have prefix "de").  I am
uncomfortable that we might decide in favour of "sxu" without giving those
arguments due consideration.

Ciarán Ó Duibhín.