gender voice variants

[Michael Everson]

On 22 Dec 2012, at 00:14, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> I agree, but apparently the subtags are already being used, and I think we should bless them on the same grounds as the ones now proposed (the set of four, that is).

Really? Who's using which of them and in what context? I have heard half a dozen different usage scenarios here. 

>> This does not respond to my suggestion that such distinctions might be best left to other tagging levels, such as <speaker> or <audience>.
> 
> What can I say?  It seems to me to fit with the others.  

With what others? With the orthographies? All of this takes any existing language or subtag and makes it a different level: voice. I do not know that this should be encoded within a language subtag. It is not unresonable 

> There simply is no precise definition of what should be represented using a variant tag and what should not.

This begs the question:

<lang>
<speaker>
<audience>

which at least one person well-informed about internationalization suggests might be favourable than overloading <lang> with this. 

> Your Majesty's subjects have petitioned for these subtags, and I believe they should be given them.

One is disinclined to rush into anything here. This has escalated very quickly from musings by Peter to a sketch that you say "constitutes a coherent proposal". I think this is very hasty for something that would operate on a structural level. 

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