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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>I completely agree with the proposition of Mark Davis
concerning the (sub-)tagging of romanization systems by reference to the
"responsible agencies".</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>In fact, many examples are about romanization of
geographic names by specialized agencies (because cartography, that began long
time ago in latin, italian, french, english, german, dutch, spanish,
portuguese..., as well for the land part of the earth that for its maritime
part, evidently asked and still asks for romanization of geographical
names) like:</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>-The US BGN (Board on Geographic Names), and also the
National ;</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>-The GB PCGN (Permanent Committee on Geographical
Names</SPAN>)<SPAN class=458415212-29092008>;</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008></SPAN><SPAN class=458415212-29092008>-The FR IGN
(Institut Géographique national);</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>-The UN GEGN (United nations Group of Experts on
Geographical Names), whose work is used and referenced inside ISO
3166, that recently published:</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>*Manual for the standardization of geographical names
(Manual M 88; February 2006), and</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008>*Technical reference manual for the standardization of
geographical names Manual M 87; March 2007</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=458415212-29092008></SPAN></FONT> </DIV><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=fr dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>De :</B> ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no
[mailto:ietf-languages-bounces@alvestrand.no] <B>De la part de</B> Mark
Davis<BR><B>Envoyé :</B> lundi 29 septembre 2008 10:47<BR><B>À :</B>
ietf-languages@iana.org<BR><B>Objet :</B> Re: LANGUAGE SUBTAG
REGISTRATION FORM (R4) - Pinyin<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>Some people apparently thought at first that the hpin1958 was a
joke -- it wasn't. I was trying to be consistent with the tack taken on
acad1958. People from the 'broad pinyin' camp are claiming that there are
a set of romanizations that follow the same principles, and that thereby
should have the broad term 'pinyin'. No evidence or pointers to documentation
of those principles have yet followed, so there is as yet no reason to think
that that would be a good approach.
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">*However*, an
alternative approach to romanization systems could end up with the same
result, but be defined on a sounder basis. </SPAN>That would be to use such
subtags not as representing some (ill-defined or undefined) principles, but
denoting 'responsible agencies'. For example, we could have any of:</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<UL>
<LI>ru-Latn-bgn - A romanization of Russian defined by
the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
<LI>ru-Latn-ungegn - A romanization of Russian defined by
the UNITED NATIONS GROUP OF EXPERTS ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES (UNGEGN)
<LI>ru-Latn-gost - A romanization of Russian defined by the GOST
standards, now
administered by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC)<BR></LI></UL></DIV>
<DIV>This could be a principled approach to romanization subtags (and other
transliteration subtags), since it would be clear what the combination of
language+script+subtag would denote in such cases case. That is, the 'ru'
could be replaced by arbitrary other language subtags, and the meaning of the
resulting tag would still be well defined. (It might have an empty denotation,
like bo-Cher-AQ, but the semantics would be well defined.) Each of ungegn,
gost, bgn, etc would point to a particular agency in its
registration.<BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>And I think such a strategy for subtag registration would be a reasonable
one. One could even combine that with year subtags to indicate revisions,
where necessary. For example, </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>he-Latn-ungegn - any of the Hebrew romanization systems defined by
the UNITED NATIONS GROUP OF EXPERTS ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES (UNGEGN).</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>he-Latn-ungegn-2003 : the 2003 version of the UNGEGN
romanization<BR></DIV>
<DIV>he-Latn-ungegn-2008 : the 2008 version of the UNGEGN
romanization<BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>So, consistent with that, we could define the subtag 'pinyin' as being
one of a set of romanizations defined by the Chinese government, and have not
only </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>zh-Latn-pinyin<BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>but also, according to whatever standards the Chinese government
publishes:</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>ug-Latn-pinyin</DIV>
<DIV>bo-Latn-pinyin<BR></DIV>
<DIV>mn-Latn-pinyin<BR></DIV>
<DIV>...</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Taking that path, it would probably be best not to have specify language
prefixes in the registration form, but rather in the Description note that
'pinyin' should be combined with a language subtag and 'Latn' to indicate a
romanization for that language according to Chinese government standards,
since they could be extended over time (we would not want a precedent that
would end up having 50+ different Prefixs for bgn, or ungegn, or ...).</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>That would then be a methodology that would make sense to me for going
forward with pinyin.</DIV>
<DIV><BR clear=all>Mark<BR><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Mark Davis <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:mark@macchiato.com">mark@macchiato.com</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV dir=ltr>I've produced a modified version of my R3, with the following
changes:
<DIV><BR>
<DIV>- change of the subtag name for consistency with Michael's approach on
Belerusian</DIV>
<DIV>- addition of zh-Latn prefix (as discussed on the list)</DIV>
<DIV>- some additional information on the letters used in this system.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>====<BR>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse"><SPAN
style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse">LANGUAGE SUBTAG <SPAN>REGISTRATION</SPAN> FORM
(R4)<BR>1. Name of requester: <BR><BR>Mark Davis<BR><BR>2. E-mail address of requester: <BR><BR><A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,204)" href="mailto:markdavis@google.com"
target=_blank>markdavis@google.com</A><BR><BR>3. Record Requested:<BR><BR>Type: variant<BR>Subtag:
hpin1958<BR>Description: Hanyu Pinyin romanization of
Mandarin
Chinese<BR>Prefix: zh-Latn<BR><BR>4. Intended meaning of the subtag:<BR><BR>To distinguish </SPAN><SPAN
style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse">Mandarin </SPAN><SPAN
style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse">Chinese content written in Latin characters using the Hanyu
Pinyin romanization (as adopted by China in
1958) from the other possible transcriptions. It uses the
Latin
letters [aáàǎā b-d eéèěē f-h iíìǐī j-n oóòǒō p-t uúùǔū üǘǜǚǖ
w-z]: that is, a-z, minus v, plus ü and 4 additional accented versions
of each of the vowels.</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse"><SPAN
style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse"><BR>5. Reference to published description of the language (book or article):<BR><BR>Hanyu
Pinyin, the most commonly used system for </SPAN><SPAN
style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse">Mandarin </SPAN><SPAN
style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse">Chinese romanization, has been the national standard of China since 1958, and an international standard (ISO 7098:1991, 2nd ed.) since 1982.
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>See also the LOC page for the relation
between Hanyu Pinyin and Wade-Giles: <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,204)"
href="http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/romcover.html"
target=_blank>http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/romcover.html</A><BR><BR>6. Any other relevant information:</DIV></SPAN></SPAN>
<DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>