I'm not fully convinced, but am somewhat sympathetic to the request. One of the great advantages of BCP 47 is the generative nature. I can have a code like en-GB to indicate the variant of English as used in the UK, even if the actual range of usage doesn't exactly match the boundaries of the UK; it may be considerably larger or somewhat smaller (if one considers 'standard' variants).
<br><br>Similarly, a variant subtag like '16thc' (although personally I'd prefer '1500s') attached to any language can designate a language variant used roughly within that span of time, even if it is not precise, and may span a much larger or somewhat smaller range of usage. It satisfies a general need of scholars, without requiring interminable arguments as to the exact range of time within which particular features of particular languages constituted distinguishable variants.
<br><br>Mark<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 12/12/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Michael Everson</b> <<a href="mailto:everson@evertype.com">everson@evertype.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
At 16:49 +0000 2006-12-12, CE Whitehead wrote:<br>>Hi. I'm requesting the tag for French, and possibly for English and<br>>not for Old English or Esperanto if you look at the prefix (Old<br>>English was not spoken in the 16th century; that was Elizabethan
<br>>English a variant of modern English that was spoken at the end of<br>>the 16th and 17th centuries; Shakespeare's plays supposedly<br>>'standardized' the English language which was quite varied<br>>(Chaucer's dialect was just one of the many dialects spoken in the
<br>>13th-14th centuries, the period of Middle English.<br><br>Of course I am aware of that.<br><br>You have not addressed my concerns.<br><br>I think 16thc and 17thc are generic as eastern and western are, and<br>the question about what to do with the other 19 centuries CE or any
<br>previous centuries has not been addressed. The question of what to do<br>when a language form spans several centuries has not been addressed.<br><br>>The way I see it we need tags to specify the period in which the
<br>>language was spoken as language varies over time; 17th century works<br>>very nicely for 17th century French which can be treated together to<br>>some degree though there is still quite a bit of variation in the
<br>>language then; 16th century is an alternative tag for 16th century<br>>French, which is accessible to modern French speakers but is really<br>>still Middle French (this tag allows 16th century French to be<br>
>tagged as modern but identified as a variant so that 16th century<br>>French literature will come up in a search for literature in French<br>>without the seeker's having to ask for literature in a separate<br>>language, Middle French; maybe this second tag should be 14thto16thc
<br>>to include Middle French which did vary over time and get more<br>>modern which is why for the time being I just requested a 16th-c tag<br>>for this single century).<br><br>But these tags could be applied to anything.
<br><br>My current view is that these proposed tags should be rejected.<br>--<br>Michael Everson * <a href="http://www.evertype.com">http://www.evertype.com</a><br>_______________________________________________<br>Ietf-languages mailing list
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