request for subtag for Elfdalian

[John Cowan]

Doug Ewell scripsit:

> 2. A corollary to this premise is the belief that the logic employed
> by ISO 639-3/RA in rejecting the request submitted to them, that
> Elfdalian falls under the "roof" of Swedish, was faulty or
> misapplied.

Misapplied, surely.  Elfdalian *does* have Swedish as its Dachsprache;
the claim is that it has sufficient Abstand not to be treated as a
dialect of Swedish.  There's no doubt that Welsh has a "roof" and it's
English (or Spanish in Argentina), but only the stupidest conceivable
English nationalist could believe that Welsh is a dialect of English.

> Given all this, would it not seem that to include the Swedish or
> Swedish-based name of this language as one of its Description fields
> would contradict the underlying premise that it is in fact a
> language and not a dialect of Swedish?

I don't think so.  Most of the names of the Romance languages spoken in
France are French-language exonyms (as well as being used in English,
of course).  Sometimes that's the most practical thing, as long as they
are not actually derogatory.

I'd be in favor of Elfdalian, Övdalską, Älvdalska in that order.

-- 
 John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
               Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes.