<div dir="ltr"><br clear="all">Mark<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Michael Everson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:everson@evertype.com">everson@evertype.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">On 26 Sep 2008, at 12:40, Mark Davis wrote:<br>
<br>
> Type: variant<br>
> Subtag: hpin1958<br>
> Description: Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin Chinese<br>
> Prefix: zh-Latn<br>
<br>
</div>I do not prefer this because, as John said yesterday:<br>
<br>
>> For every relevant langauge there is a Hanyu-Pinyin-type<br>
>> orthography; rather than devising individual subtags for all of<br>
>> these, we devise one, which when applied to Chinese signifies Hanyu<br>
>> Pinyin.<br>
<br>
<br>
I think the right way to do this is to use "pinyin" in the same way as<br>
"fonupa" is used, applicable to many languages. When applied to zh<br>
alone, it should be defined to mean Mandarin (in the absence of being<br>
able to use cmn). I do not think we should have 40 different pinyin-<br>
based subtags. It is clear that the Chinese are using the conventions<br>
of this alphabet for many languages.</blockquote><div><br></div>As far as I can tell, only you and John think this is a good idea. Having looked at some of the other romanizations, I see little real commonality in the systems to the point where "pinyin" would be usefully, and not misleadingly, applied to them.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">I think by far the better course is to register "pinyin" as Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Latin for Mandarin Chinese, with prefix zh-Latn. If at some later time it looks reasonable to broaden it, we explicitly permit that in BCP47, as you know.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br>
<br>
I have however now almost been convinced that it is appropriate to put<br>
"zh-Latn" in the prefix for this and for "wadegile", though I don't<br>
know what you guys expect software to do when it finds the -Latn-<br>
omitted, as it surely will. Do you just not care?</blockquote><div><br></div><div>In software, you always have to have fallbacks. Someone might write az, and you don't know whether Latn, Arab, or Cyrl is meant. In lookup, you can use a broad interpretation (any script). In lookup (eg for a web page), you can pick the most likely one. That's why in Unicode we have "likely subtags" data:</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/charts/supplemental/likely_subtags.html">http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/charts/supplemental/likely_subtags.html</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>But if a product doesn't use this kind of information, then it helps to have the tag be zh-Latn-pinyin.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br>
<br>
Michael Everson * <a href="http://www.evertype.com" target="_blank">http://www.evertype.com</a><br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Ietf-languages mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Ietf-languages@alvestrand.no">Ietf-languages@alvestrand.no</a><br>
<a href="http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages" target="_blank">http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>