Language for taxonomic names, redux

[Andy Mabbett]

On 21 February 2017 at 19:50, Doug Ewell <doug at ewellic.org> wrote:

> Andy Mabbett wrote:
>
> > Some 14 years(!) ago, I raised the issue of a language code for
> > marking up the taxonomic names of living things:
> >
> > http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2003-February/000574.html
> >
> > But that came to nothing.
>
> Actually, it was considered rather extensively on the list, and Michael
> made a formal decision in
> http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2003-February/000582.htm

There's nothing there that says it is a "formal decision" (I'm not
doubting you when you say it was; but that's not transparent to
someone who is - still - new to this process).

I also note that the subject of Michael's email is not the one I
posted my request under; and was signed as "Everson Typography", not
"IETF".

> I would think that the need today would be to demonstrate that this
> meets the criteria in Section 3.6 of RFC 5646, which didn't exist 14
> years ago:
>
> "Dialect or other divisions or variations within a language, its
> orthography, writing system, regional or historical usage,
> transliteration or other transformation, or distinguishing variation MAY
> be registered as variant subtags."

Thank you.

Which language are taxonomic names "divisions or variations within"?
As I noted all those years ago, they're not Latin, and not English.

I also note that John Hanna asked a similar question, in reply to
Michael, back in 2003:

   http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2003-February/000583.html

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk