Occitan oddity

[Phillips, Addison]

> The Registry uses names from the core standards as Description
> fields whenever possible, with only the most trivial of modifications,
> like converting apostrophes and dashes.  The Reviewer and list reserve,
> but almost never exercise, the right to add other Description fields on
> top of these.

Well, BCP 47 reserves the right of anybody, anywhere, to request additional Description fields (or modifications of existing ones) via the registration process. Whether that option is "often" exercised remains to be seen.

> 
> Some people on LTRU were very adamant that the exact ISO names be
> used, without even typographical changes.  I guess I assumed that debate
> was as fresh in other participants' minds as it was in mine.

It is fresh in my mind. In particular, Section 3.1.5 says in part:

--
   For fields of type 'language', the first 'Description' field
   appearing in the registry corresponds whenever possible to the
   Reference Name assigned by ISO 639-3.  This helps facilitate cross-
   referencing between ISO 639 and the registry.
--

I take "corresponds" to mean "equals". It is not an ironclad "must", in part to accommodate the other requirements in the section and I think it a reasonable argument that the string "Occitan" clearly 'corresponds' to the longer registry entry. But I think this is asking for a maintenance headache unnecessarily.

> 
> Exact matching by Description
> field isn't ever going to meet everyone's needs all the time;
> that's probably why we use short codes in the first place.

Exact matching is rarely going to be a good means for finding stuff in the registry anyway. The names are only for reference and there are plenty of parenthetical hiccups and other ephemera to bollix up an exact match search anyway. I support adding descriptions where it makes sense, but in this case I don't think it does.

Addison

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect (Lab126)
Chair (W3C I18N, IETF IRI WGs)

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.