LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM: vowels

[Michael Everson]

On 2 Oct 2010, at 00:24, Mark Davis ☕ wrote:

> The exact term doesn't matter, if you prefer "vocalizd" or "pointed".
> However, it would be useful to have a single common term rather than
> different terms for the same concept. This is like the fact that we
> have a single subtag for Germany (DE), even though the names for that
> vary across languages: we don't have "GE", "AL", etc.

Oh, I don't object to the category you propose; I understand it quite well. I wonder what John Cowan thinks on this.

>> I would rather see fonberlz and fonamher and fonwebst and fon-whatever defined by specific references to actual identifiable entities. That would be meaningful and for instance could be used to facilitate machine transformation from e.g. fonberlz to fonxsamp or fonipa.
> 
> The intent is that where that is necessary, that this be the "root" of
> all such terms. That allows content to be tagged where the precise
> mechanism is not known or not relevant.
> 
> This is similar to the general principle that we use elsewhere. We
> have the term "sr" for "Serbian" even though the precise kind of
> Serbian used in the content may vary quite substantially; it could
> have even a different script; and could have substantially different
> spelling conventions based on the dialect in question.

So you're looking for a sort of macro-tag? I am not really convinced that this isn't just a "negative" concept. I don't believe that "Serbian" is precedent for this. 

I gather there is no great urgency for this one... I'd rather try to deal with this particular one after the middle of next month.

Indeed a low-traffic list for the next ten days would be just great.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/