Proposed new variant subtag: pre1917

[Doug Ewell]

Avram Lyon <ajlyon at ucla dot edu> wrote:

>      Type: variant
>      Subtag: pre1917

As is usually the case, I think it would be great if the proposed 
subtag(s) could be identified other than by the year the orthography was 
introduced (or retired).  Year-based subtags may be unnecessarily 
cryptic, or may inadvertently invite generic application in cases where 
another language variation of some sort happens to be associated with 
the year 1917.  (Usage with both 'ru' and 'orv' is not the problem.)

I understand that spelling reforms often aren't given names, and this 
may be the best we can do.  But I hope there is a better alternative.

You can have one subtag for what we are calling the pre-1917 standard 
and another for the post-1917 standard, without requiring all existing 
Russian text to use the "post-1917" subtag.  Variant subtags, like 
region and script subtags, are pretty much always optional; even 
Boontling is English.

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