request for subtag for Elfdalian
Doug Ewell
doug at ewellic.org
Sat Mar 5 18:45:03 CET 2016
Mats Blakstad wrote:
> I'm sure RA try their best to do a good job, and their halfhearted
> rejection statement show that the decision was not easy. However, I
> think they struggle more with politics than linguistics in this issue.
That seems clear. What worried me most about the rejection was the
anecdote -- I don't know if it was confirmed or not -- that the reason
the Swedish government opposes calling Elfdalian a language is that they
would be required to provide resources to the Elfdalian-speaking
community. That is perhaps the last reason on earth for the RA to reject
a request for an identifying code, when criteria such as linguistic
differences and cultural identity are met. What if the government in
question had been Russia's, or Iran's, or North Korea's?
Mats quoted the RA:
>> [ ... ] There is also a very long statement on Valencian which was
>> not given a code in 2006.
Not a good comparison at all. Valencian and Catalan are the same
language, at least as much so as American and British English, or French
and Canadian French.
> The RA also said that they worry about the implication of giving
> Elfdalian/Övdalian status as a language.
That is very troubling. The implication should be that people will be
able to identify and locate content in Elfdalian. If there are any
social or political implications, that is someone else's problem.
I don't want to argue from fallacy. The fact that the arguments given
thus far against calling Elfdalian a language are poor does not in
itself prove that Elfdalian is a language. But there need to be better
arguments for the RA to retain credibility.
--
Doug Ewell | http://ewellic.org | Thornton, CO 🇺🇸
More information about the Ietf-languages
mailing list