I replied on the LTRU list about this. Some brief comments below.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 7, 2008 9:05 PM, Frank Ellermann <<a href="mailto:nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de">nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de</a>> wrote:
<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="Ih2E3d">Mark Davis wrote:<br><br>> I haven't seen yet a convincing case for a separate "alsatian".
<br><br></div>It's an existing variant of "gsw", with its own identity, the<br>Wikipedia articles about it make sense as far as I can judge it.</blockquote><div><br>And so is "American English" distinct from "any old English". The question is whether gsw-FR is sufficient to identify it, or whether there are there are communities of Alemanic speakers in France that don't speak Alsatian.
<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><br> [variants]<br><div class="Ih2E3d">> not everyone supports them (for example, Google doesn't)
<br><br></div>Google also doesn't support many languages, they likely decide<br>what to support depending on the demand. E.g. parts of Google<br>support Elmer-Fudd "xx-fudd", Bork-bork-bork "xx-bork", Pig
<br>Latin "xx-piglatin", and Klingon "xx-klingon", for their list<br>see <<a href="http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#searchlang" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#searchlang
</a>></blockquote><div><br>Nobody supports all possible BCP 47 tags.<br><br>That's not the point. The point is that if there is already a way to use non-variant tags, that is what should be used, rather than resorting to variants that not everyone supports.
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>> if we present two ways of doing things, inevitably people will
<br>> get mixed up.<br><br></div>Creative (ab)uses of region codes to indicate the script were<br>one of the reasons to start 4646, weren't they ? Region codes<br>limited to what passes as country in the UN are often not good
<br>enough. Maybe Alsatian is a border case, maybe it should get<br>a language code, not only a variant.</blockquote><div><br>Maybe -- it really depends on whether it is reasonably well delineated by gsw-FR or not.<br><br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><br>gsw is rather new, maybe there are also old de-FR emulations<br>of Alsatian. An old de-FR would be broader than a new gsw-FR,
<br>like gsw-FR might be broader than gsw-alsatian. In the worst<br>case gsw-FR is not only broader but simply different.<br><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>> if we introduced "en-american" for American English, we would
<br>> just cause confusion with "en-US" being used for that purpose.<br><br></div>Yes, please propose something more specific. IFF we find that<br>gsw-FR really is broader, then we could go for a prefix gsw-FR
<br>for Alsatian. OTOH if it's different from gsw-FR (no subset),<br>then prefix gsw is fine.</blockquote><div> </div><div>I think we're in agreement here.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Saying that Alsatian is irrelevant is<br>no option. </blockquote><div><br>I never said that.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
A possible reason to reject the request would be<br>that Alsatian is "in essence the same as gsw-FR". </blockquote><div><br>Agreed.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I can't judge<br>if that's the case. In fact I was surprised that "gsw" in the<br>sense "Schwyzerdütsch" is supposed to encompass "Alsatian".</blockquote><div>(me too, when it appeared: especially with that abbreviation.)
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><font color="#888888"><br> Frank<br></font><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
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