<div dir="ltr">I'm back online, and have read through a number of the conversations. There are several factors in play here, and I make a stab at disentangling them. We have two main types of subtags:<div><div><div><br>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1. Specific.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br></span>Some variant subtags have a specific meaning, and only really makes sense with a small number of possible prefixes.</div>
<div><br>Examples:<br>en-US-valygirl : valley-girl US English<br>hy-arevela : Eastern Armenian</div><div>el-polyton : Polytonic Greek<br><br>valygirl has a specific meaning, and is closely associated with certain prefixes. A tag like fr-valygirl would have no meaning. Note that we could have as easily written en-valygirl, because the variant is sufficiently narrow that the "US" is implicit. As a matter of fact, we could even have written "und-valygirl", because even the "en" is implicit in the code. However, practically, en-US-valygirl provides better behavior in most implementations, and would be the recommended form.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The same considerations apply for hy-AM-Armn-arevela, el-Grek-GR-polyton, and so on.</div><div><br></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">2. General.</span><div><br></div><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">With this type of variant subtag, the meaning of the subtag has reasonable independent meaning, and not closely tied to a particular prefix.</span></span></div>
<div><br></div><div>hy-eastern : my original request for Eastern Armenian (turned down)<br>fr-fonipa : French in IPA</div><div><br></div><div>fonipa is not tied to fr or en or de, but has independent meaning. Year tags would be another case of this; although there is a prefix of de, the meaning of fr-1901 would be clear. If we had defined "eastern" and "western", as I proposed some time ago, they would be other cases. One could more generatively interpret the subtags, because "de-eastern" would mean an Eastern form of German.</div>
<div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Granularity</span></div><div><br></div><div>We also have an established practice of having a progression from gross granularity to fine granularity, such as with</div>
<div><br></div>sl : Slovenian<br>sl-rozaj : Resian variety of Slovenian<br>sl-rozaj-biske : San Giorgio dialect of the Resian variety of Slovenian<br><div><div><br></div><div>That is, we recognize that there are <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">both</span> broader <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">and</span> finer categories of language that people <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">legitimately</span> need to distinguish. Note how this interacts with the general/specific axis. In the above examples for Slovenian, all are all speicific tags, and so even if we could actually write sl-biske or even und-biske without ambiguity, the recommended prefix is more explicit.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Note also that we have <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> had the practice of incorporating the year into a variant except for very specific cases. We do not have bisk1593, nor do we do el-mono1982 ("<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; line-height: 19px; ">The <i>monotonic orthography</i> (μονός = single + τόνος = accent) being the simplified spelling introduced in 1982 for modern Greek" - wikipedia), nor el-pol200bc (with a putative date of 200BC for the development of the diacritics). Nor did we have a year in "tarask", which was fa<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal;">r more specific (in the Description: "The subtag represents Branislau Taraskievic's Belarusian </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal;">orthography as published in "Bielaruski klasycny pravapis" by Juras</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal;">Buslakou, Vincuk Viacorka, Zmicier Sanko, and Zmicier Sauka (Vilnia- </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal;">Miensk 2005).")</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal;">Note that including the year is counter indicated where the intention is to specific the broader variant</span></span></span>, since it would indicate to users that only a very narrow form (defined by some work in that year) is being referenced. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: normal; ">We do have cases where there is a very specific form that is being specified, like 1694acad. This is when there is clear adherence to a particular work.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>So, how does this apply to my recent (attempted) registrations?</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">zh-Latn-pinyin. </span>This is to represent Mandarin Chinese written in the Hanyu Pinyin form, as opposed to Wade-Giles.While "Latn" is implied by the variant tag, for better implementation behavior it is included, so the prefix should be "zh-Latn". This is just like how biske has "rozaj" in its prefix (sl-rozaj).</div>
<div><br></div><div>This does not follow the pattern of fonipa, since it is a specific romanization of a specific language. If we are to be consistent with the pattern of denying "eastern", we should not broaden this tag to be more than what is intended. The name "pinyin" would be the best name, since that is the most recognizable term. I do not want the year 1954 in the subtag, nor the year 1979, nor any other year, since those would be too restrictive.</div>
<div><br></div><div>However, if it makes the difference between being accepted or not I could go with "hpinyin" or similar variant.<br></div><div><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">be-acade. </span>This should not have the year in the variant subtag either, since that would be too restrictive, and not represent the form that is intended for registration. After all, as in the registration form (text originally from Yuri), "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; ">The "academic" (normative, literary) form, existing in a relatively unchanged form for 75 years". This tag is for the more general category; those specific forms could be added later, using the "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; ">sl-rozaj-biske" model <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">if</span> someone wants forms that are specific to a form defined by a work in a given year: 1959, 1985, 2008, or whatever. But that is not the intention for <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">this</span> subtag -- it is not year-specific.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; "></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; ">I would have no objection to having the tag be "be-beakadem" or something like that if people found that preferable to also incorporate "be" into the variant subtag. After all, like "rozaj" or "biske", it is intended to be a specific tag.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div><div><div><br>Mark<br><br><br>On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 3:46 AM, Doug Ewell <<a href="mailto:doug@ewellic.org">doug@ewellic.org</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail dot com> wrote:<br>
><br>> > Hi, John: I think the argument that I was responding to is that the<br>> > script subtag helps to identify the kind of orthography when the<br>> > variant subtag is not known. So I continue to consider the<br>
> > suppress-script field is the best solution!<br>><br>> Will someone please explain to me what good it would do to associate a<br>> Suppress-Script with a variant subtag if the tag consumer doesn't<br>
> recognize the variant?<br>><br>> --<br>> Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14<br>> <a href="http://www.ewellic.org">http://www.ewellic.org</a><br>> <a href="http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html">http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html</a><br>
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