I agree with John's analysis, and the conclusion that we shouldn't have prefixes in cases like this.<br><br clear="all">Mark<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:38, John Cowan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cowan@ccil.org">cowan@ccil.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Michael Everson scripsit:<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> It would be easy enough to specify the range of use for alalc97 now.<br>
<br>
</div>In fact it is not. My quick count found 120 languages, but the<br>
introduction says "more than 150 languages". In addition, there are many<br>
romanizations specific to particular orthographies (mentioned by date)<br>
or dialects (mentioned by name), so a correct and complete list would<br>
require many variants to be registered as well.<br>
<br>
It's important to note that prefixes are only recommendations. Having an<br>
exhaustive list of 120 or 160 prefixes does not make nonsensical tags<br>
like en-alalc97 invalid. In practice, people will tag documents already<br>
known to be in an ALA/LC romanization using this subtag, and will not<br>
apply it to other documents in random romanizations. So I recommend an<br>
empty Prefix: field.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Then we specify the range of use for alalc97 now, and explicitly omit<br>
> Japanese since it is already covered.<br>
<br>
</div>I'd rather deprecate "heploc" in this case, since it is specific to<br>
the LoC.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Then alalc09 is only registered for use with the changed (or new)<br>
> languages.<br>
<br>
</div>I agree. At present these are Chinese (like pinyin but without tone<br>
marks), Kurdish, Ladino, Inuktitut (not in '97), Korean, ancient<br>
Greek, and modern Greek (there was a unified Greek table in '97).<br>
See <a href="http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html" target="_blank">http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html</a> , from which all current<br>
tables ('97 and later) can be downloaded.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
John Cowan <a href="mailto:cowan@ccil.org">cowan@ccil.org</a> <a href="http://ccil.org/%7Ecowan" target="_blank">http://ccil.org/~cowan</a><br>
Rather than making ill-conceived suggestions for improvement based on<br>
uninformed guesses about established conventions in a field of study with<br>
which familiarity is limited, it is sometimes better to stick to merely<br>
observing the usage and listening to the explanations offered, inserting<br>
only questions as needed to fill in gaps in understanding. --Peter Constable<br>
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