Criteria for languages?

[Doug Ewell]

CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail dot com> wrote:

> To me, since Latgalia n has its own distinct writing system, and its 
> own literature (thus meeting the criteria for a separate language at 
> ethnologue; 
> http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/introduction.asp#language_id),
> I do not see any problem with its getting its own language subtag.

For my part, at least, I have no problem with the idea that Latgalian 
should get its own language subtag if experts feel it is a distinct 
language.  My concern is with converting the existing "Latvian" to a 
macrolanguage, which implies that the term "Latvian" sometimes refers 
just to Standard Latvian and sometimes to both Standard Latvian and 
Latgalian.  I don't necessarily get the impression that the latter is 
true; it seems that when people mean Latgalian, they say "Latgalian."

--
Doug Ewell  |  Thornton, Colorado, USA  |  http://www.ewellic.org
RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14  |  ietf-languages @ http://is.gd/2kf0s ­