LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM (R4): pinyin

[Phillips, Addison]

At this point I consider any of the alternatives to 1959acad to be inadequate, precisely because they refer solely to an institution rather than to an orthography.

AP> I don’t believe that Mark and Ihar’s request refers to the institution at all.

Personally, I am somewhat horrified by the idea that a requester might vehemently object to an “edited” version of their request and that the result might be registered with their name on it. Of course, anyone else, including you, Michael, may submit and get registered a subtag that the original requester disagrees with. You don’t have to register “just anything” and you don’t have to approve Mark and Ihar’s request. But your alternative is not to ignore their protests and press ahead. It is to reject their application.

If Mark and Ihar are OK with the revision I have proposed, we can go ahead with it with their names on it. If they don't want that, perhaps Yury or I or both of us will sponsor it.

AP> That’s fine, provided you reject Mark/Ihar’s request, submit the new request, grant the two week review period required. And note that Mark and/or Ihar may appeal your action.

I am rejecting "acade" and "academ" and "akademia" because they are too generic.

AP> Huh? The request itself is not for a generic subtag. I think you mean that the subtag’s form suggests that it is a generic subtag when it is not. I note that each of these subtags was (awkwardly) constructed to avoid the English word “academy” or “academic” (or “official” or any other synonym), which would also be a generic-looking subtag with a hidden specific meaning.

AP> If you’re going to go down the year path at all costs, I would tend to prefer that you get rid of the ugly and unhelpful ‘acad’ part altogether. The subtag ‘1959’ is consistent with other similar subtags (1901, 1996, 1994). If you don’t know what the subtag means, you probably shouldn’t be using it and I think that ‘acad’ doesn’t add anything outside the context of this email thread.

AP> What would be best would be a subtag that conveys the meaning in some distinctly local way. Alas, it seems that the obvious candidate is a pejorative term. Is there no other term than “academic” for this orthography?

Addison
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