Portuguese subtags

[Doug Ewell]

António H F P A Emiliano - FCSH/UNL <ah dot emiliano at fcsh dot unl dot 
pt> wrote:

>> As a native English speaker, I didn't have any problems with the
>> English in these proposals.
>
> OK. So what does 'Minister's Council Resolution' mean in English?
>
> Is it a resolution issued/put forward by the council of a minister?
> Which minister in this particular case?
> What does council mean in this context?
> Is it a group of advisors?
> Or is it a formal gathering of close collaborators or subordinates?
> If the council is an advisory group or a formal body of collaborators
> how can it issue resolutions?
> Usw.

That isn't a question of native English or non-native English; it's a 
question of the Portuguese political structure.  I read "Minister's 
Council Resolution" as saying that there is a Minister's Council of some 
sort that issued a resolution.  I didn't ask how the council was 
constituted, or at which minister's pleasure it serves, or whether it 
has authority to issue resolutions.  I imagine an organizational chart 
of the Portuguese government would be of more use here than an English 
proofreader.

>> Look through the variant subtags in the Registry and you will find
>> many which are not specified to this level of precision.
>
> I don't really care about other variant subtags: as a Portuguese
> professional linguist and Professor of Portuguese Linguistics I just
> want this particular proposal to be well written and well conceived.
> I accept the need for a subtag <1990aolp> (I even proposed its final
> designation). However I cannot ignore the fact that there is not a
> single full specification for the orthography that it encodes.

Other variant subtags do provide some perspective on the guidelines for 
acceptability of new subtag proposals.  But the primary source is, of 
course, RFC 5646.

RFC 5646, Section 2.2.5 says that variants "are used to indicate 
additional, well-recognized variations that define a language or its 
dialects that are not covered by other available subtags."

RFC 5646, Section 3.5 gives expanded information on the qualifications 
for registering a variant.  Basically, if a language variation is 
well-enough known and not already available via a non-private BCP 47 
tag, it qualifies.  Some examples of variants of English that would not 
meet the criterion of "not already available" might be "Australian 
English" (use "en-AU") or "Jamaican Creole English" (use "jam").

There is a requirement to provide a reference to a published description 
of the language, but that is expressly to confirm whether the language 
variation is well-enough known and not already encoded, not to judge 
whether the variation is a "good" one or whether all countries where the 
basic language is spoken approve of the variation.  The last paragraph 
of Section 3.5 says:

"The Language Subtag Reviewer decides what constitutes 'good enough' 
reference material."

which means it is up to Michael to decide, not the rest of us; but 
immediately after that it says:

"This requirement [to provide a reference to a published description] is 
not intended to exclude particular languages or dialects due to the size 
of the speaker population or lack of a standardized orthography."

What I have seen from this discussion is that at least the 
orthographical reform identified with the year "1990" is indeed 
well-known, well enough for some countries or publications to refuse 
pointedly to adopt it while others do adopt it.  A BCP 47 subtag would 
serve the purpose of distinguishing text written in the new orthography 
from other Portuguese text.  Does anyone deny that such a distinction 
exists, for a large enough text sample?

>> I don't think there are any truly authoritative dictionaries for
>> Scouse or Boontling, either.
>
> We are discussing here a major world language and a very
> controversial reform that has yet to be fully implemented 21 years
> after its official approval. I say this with all due respect to minor
> language variants, of course.

English (the basic language of Scouse and Boontling) is sometimes 
considered to be a major world language, too.

Orthographical reforms do take some time, and aren't always successful 
in the end.  I've heard that some users of de-1996 have reverted to 
de-1901, for various reasons, which other German speakers held it in 
contempt and never adopted it.

>> I hope I am reading the situation wrong.
>
> You are IMHO.

I'm glad to hear you say that you do support the creation of a subtag, 
because the language variation does exist.  I hope when Michael returns 
from his travels, we can get a speedy resolution to the question of 
"good-enough reference material" and move forward.

> I am a vocal opponent to this reform. I think it is a shambles, a
> fraud, a crime (this is my first and last nonlinguistic appraisal
> in this discussion of the matter under scrutiny). I have participated
> in this discussion with total fairness. I have stuck to facts, like
> for instance the fact that there is no official specification of the
> reform. This is a fact. If this group does not deem this fact to be
> relevant move on. I have not raised a single political issue in this
> discussion and I have not found any political issues being raised by
> any of the participants.
>
> I strongly oppose (with facts) that such an important subtag be
> associated to such a unworthy and problematic reference like the
> online resource referred to in previous messages. I have suggested
> alternatives (printed dictionaries).

When Michael is available, I would like to see him rule specifically on 
the application of the last paragraph of RFC 5646, Section 3.5 to the 
present question of whether the available references are acceptable for 
registration.  That should be the final word.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14
www.ewellic.org | www.facebook.com/doug.ewell | @DougEwell ­