Valencian Language Tag registration request

[Randy Presuhn]

Hi -

> From: "CE Whitehead" <cewcathar at hotmail.com>
> To: <ietf-languages at iana.org>
> Cc: <vmbenet at gmail.com>
> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:56 AM
> Subject: Valencian Language Tag registration request
...
> However, if Valencian turns out to have a separate literature,
> and Victor wants to apply for a language code such as "valencia"
> (8 characters, the max allowed), fine.

Not really.  http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ltru-4646bis-23.txt
which, though technically work-in-progress, represents best current
thinking, says:

   o  Primary language subtags for languages not listed in ISO 639 that
      are not variants of any listed or registered language MAY be
      registered.  At the time this document was created, there were no
      examples of this form of subtag.  Before attempting to register a
      language subtag, there MUST be an attempt to register the language
      with ISO 639.  Subtags MUST NOT be registered for languages
      defined by codes that exist in ISO 639-1, ISO 639-2, or ISO 639-3,
      or that are under consideration by the ISO 639 registration
      authorities, or that have never been attempted for registration
      with those authorities.  If ISO 639 has previously rejected a
      language for registration, it is reasonable to assume that there
      must be additional, very compelling evidence of need before it
      will be registered as a primary language subtag in the IANA
      registry (to the extent that it is very unlikely that any subtags
      will be registered of this type).

I'd put the odds of Valencian getting a primary language subtag
(of its own, different from 'ca') at exactly zero.

All the evidence presented so far suggests that a variant subtag
is the correct route.

> And as I've said before, I'd personally prefer a 2-character code
> near the top of the list instead of something that will be hidden
> way down.  So I'd leave the code as 'ca' for now.

Where something shows up in the registry, and whether in the form of
a primary language subtag or includes a variant subtag, should have
no bearing whatsoever on what a user interface does.  The user
simply should not care, and in most cases has no need to know,
what the machine-to-machine code looks like.

Randy