Serbo-Croatian continuum: the top level

[Peter Constable]

From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org] On Behalf Of John Cowan

>> The report from the 639-3 RA mentions the need to first resolve the 
>> issue in relation to ISO 639-2. Did you make a request to the 639-2 RA?

> I haven't.  I have no contact with that RA; if someone else does (hint,
hint) that would be a Good Thing.  

http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/iso639-2form.php


> I shouldn't think either RA is going to change the interpretation of the existing 'sh', 'sr', 'hr', and 'bs'
> code elements, though.
Certainly not in any breaking way. But they can certainly consider your need and how it might be accommodated in a manner that doesn't break existing usage of existing identifiers.


>> Can you provide more info on the usage scenarios for which these would 
>> be needed, and how users and interop would be impacted by creating 
>> distinct primary language subtags rather than using existing primary 
>> language subtags with new variant subtags?

> Well, an obvious point is that Certain Companies systematically ignore variant subtags.  
> Arguably that's mostly because they don't care about spoken versions, though there 
> *is* (mostly older) literature in both Chakavian and Kajkavian varieties.

You haven't really answered the question. What kinds of content needs to be tagged to reflect these distinctions? Who would the users be? In what kinds of applications would they be used? What kinds of interactions / information workflows might arise in which these would need to be used alongside or compared to the existing SCC identifiers?

Can you elaborate on "Certain Companies systematically ignore variant subtags"? That's one way to clarify what scenarios you're looking to have supported that aren't supported today.



Peter