LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM: pinyin

[Randy Presuhn]

Hi -

> From: "John Cowan" <cowan at ccil.org>
> To: "Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon.com>
> Cc: <ietf-languages at alvestrand.no>; "Kent Karlsson" <kent.karlsson14 at comhem.se>
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 11:18 AM
> Subject: Re: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM: pinyin
>
> Phillips, Addison scripsit:
> 
> > However, the point that 'pinyin' as a term is inexact seems
> > reasonable. Perhaps change the subtag requested to 'hanyu'?
> 
> "Hanyu" means "Chinese language"; by itself it doesn't refer to
> orthography at all.
> 
> The fact is that "pinyin" by default means Hanyu Pinyin.

That was my experience as a student learning Chinese, and
has been confirmed by my Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese-
speaking) friends that I've asked.  A subtag "-pinyin" wouldn't surprise
anyone with even slight knowledge of Chinese, and the immediate
expectation, even without looking at the registration, would be Hanyu Pinyin.
The  significance of a subtag like "Hanyu" is less obvious, and would probably
lead to folks looking at the registration record (or the tagged data :-) and
then asking "why didn't they use '-pinyin'?"

Randy