suppress-script values for macrolanguage-encompassed languages

[CE Whitehead]

Hi.
Doug Ewell doug at ewellic.org 
Thu Dec 23 22:49:29 CET 2010 

> Two things in particular bother me about this thread:

> 1.  The conflict between macrolanguages and Suppress-Script.  I don't 
> have an answer for this, but it seems wrong somehow that a given 
> macrolanguage such as 'ar', which is commonly identified with a variety 
>(Standard Arabic) that is overwhelmingly written in a single script, Yes, Standard Arabic is overwhelmingly written in a single script (I took two years of it and then spent a year in an Arabic-speaking country -- that's my background).
> should not have a Suppress-Script of 'Arab' because there are certain 
> minority varieties of that language like Cypriot Arabic that may not be 
> overwhelmingly written in that script.  'ar' was supposed to be one of 
> the classic use cases for Suppress-Script.And both [ar] (the macro-language) and [arb] (standard Arabic) should get a suppres-script [arab], as should in my opinion Egyptian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and North Levantine Arabic (however not being a native speaker and having studied primarily the Standard with a bit of Levantine Arabic I don't feel my opinion is definitive).But I am not sure what script is most used online to write dialects which are not traditionally written at all -- for which the most common uses would be blogs, text, email, etc, also some Bible translations (which online seem to be overwhelmingly in Latin script I think for convenience).  These may be overwhelmingly written in Arabic script but it's also possible that a mix of scripts is used.The goal I am assuming is to tag online content appropriately.> 2.  The idea that we are now relying on individual research and 
> "feedback from native bloggers and such" to determine Suppress-Script 
> appropriateness.  Suit yourself; I personally prefer to hear from the communities that will use the subtags.  As for individual research -- Peter proposed this and no one acted on it so I thought I'd go through and see which were the best candidates for suppress-script, based on what I could find and what I knew from previous experience/knowledge of linguistics -- and so I am expressing my opinion on the suppress-script requests Peter submitted; I assumed that everyone on the list would offer an opinion.But I can't say what data the language subtag reviewer will consider when he makes his decision. > I understood Suppress-Script to be for the obvious > cases, to discourage people from adding patently pointless script 
> subtags (as in "en-Latn" or "ru-Cyrl").
Yes that's my understanding too -- suppress-script is to indicate what script online content in a particular language is overwhelmingly written in.  Now what do you or anyone know about Konkani, Tamashek, or even Malay varieties?  Because these were cases where I was unsure of the appropriateness of suppress-script and I don't know much about any of these.Thanks. Best,--C. E. Whiteheadcewcathar at hotmail.com  > --
> Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | http://www.ewellic.org
> RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ is dot gd slash 2kf0s ­
 		 	   		  
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