Stop requiring endonyms (Was: RFC 4645bis: making 'pes' and 'prs' extlangs/// Better use autonyms

[Doug Ewell]

"Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon dot com> wrote:

> 4. The important point is that people make registration requests when 
> they want some change (addition, modification) or comment on specific 
> proposed records when those are requested (such as additions of new 
> records or proposed registrations). If you feel that changes should be 
> made wholesale to the incoming ISO 639-3 records, your comments would 
> be best directed at ltru@ and draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis. You should also 
> probably comment on draft-ietf-ltru-4646bis (but if you are going to 
> make comments, you should make them NOW, as we are beyond Last Call).

Actually, I don't agree that any "extracurricular" Description fields 
should be added, wholesale or piecemeal, as part of the draft-4645bis 
effort.  They should be proposed on this list, reviewed by list members, 
and approved or rejected by the Reviewer, just like any other proposal; 
but proposals against the new ISO 639-3-based subtags should be made 
only AFTER 4646bis and 4645bis are approved.  This goes for Mauritian 
Creole, and it goes for the languages with "Farsi" in their name.

> What I'm basically saying is: it does no good to whine about this 
> topic. If you want something, you have to register it yourself. But 
> then, that's what the registration process is for: requesting stuff. 
> If you want an automagic mechanism, you need it to be written into the 
> RFC.

I can't imagine what such an automagic mechanism would entail, but the 
Registry is not meant to be an encyclopedic reference to the names of 
the world's languages in different languages, including the endonyms. 
These are not even known for every language, especially the extinct ones 
and those spoken by 100 tribesmen in a Bolivian jungle.  Furthermore, as 
stated in an earlier thread, including the endonyms would not reduce the 
amount of ambiguity in the Registry.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
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