New variant subtags for Serbian language

[John Cowan]

Goran Rakic scripsit:

> I think that prefix is required as two new variants are mutually
> exclusive.

The Prefix field just specifies one legal prefix, not the only legal
prefix.  Thus, the Prefix field on 'biscayan' is 'eu', which means that
'eu-biscayan' is an appropriate tag; however, 'eu-ES-biscayan' is also
an appropriate tag.  The field cannot enforce mutual exclusivity (nor
can anything else).

> Without a common prefix one could form the sr-ekavn-ijekavn language
> tag that makes no sense.

Hopefully, then, no language tagger will use it, for the same reason
they would not use ru-Latn-petr1708.

> if they are suitable.

If they are found to be suitable, they can be added.  Furthermore,
adherence to variant prefixes is only recommended, not required.

> The Serbian official standard recognizes two pronunciations. As far as
> I know that is not the case for current Croatian and Bosnian standards
> where both are based on Ijekavian.

Standard Montenegrin, too.

> I would suggest to approve two new variant subtags for the Serbian
> language now, and if there are well formed requests ever for new
> variants in other languages it would be easy to modify subtags and add
> new prefixes.

I agree.

For list members not aware of the relationship of the four standards, see
<http://recycledknowledge.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-many-languages-is-that.html>.

-- 
Unless it was by accident that I had            John Cowan
offended someone, I never apologized.           cowan at ccil.org
        --Quentin Crisp                         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan