<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><font face="'times new roman', serif"><i><span style="font-style:normal"><i></i></span><i></i></i></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 1:40 PM, Michael Everson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:everson@evertype.com" target="_blank">everson@evertype.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Here is an initial draft. Who will take up the pen and offer more?<br>
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The group responsible for the IETF language subtags is deeply concerned at the reasons given by the 639 RA for rejection of the Elfdalian language. There is no question but that its linguistic features are unique in the continuum of North Germanic languages. The reasons given for the rejection are poor: Two people with job tiles have essentially said “I don’t like it” and giving no linguistic argument at all. Rebuttal documents were far more convincing.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline">The last line is unnecessarily argumentative, and are more likely to annoy people than convince them (denigrating "Two people with job tiles"). Best to use neutral language, something like the following. (I haven't followed the details, so this is just a sketch of how the text might look.)</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline"><br></div></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="times new roman, serif">The rebuttal documents (<url1>, <url2>) provide convincing evidence that Elfdalian is not merely a dialect, but rather is as distinct from Swedish as Bokmal is; those have separate language codes. No reasoned responses to those documents and their evidence was provided by the 639 RA.</font></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="times new roman, serif"> </font></div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
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We write to the 639 RA in appeal, and ask you to to rescind your rejection immediately (without waiting a year). The provision of a 639-3 subtag is urgently required to meet an important user need if the RA will not grant a subtag we WILL be forced to approve a language subtag. This will be disadvantageous to users of Elfdalian, because it will ultimately lead to multiple codes for this language when a formal 639 subtag gets approved.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline">When making a claim of "urgency" and "important", one should be able to back it up; why is it so urgent? why is it such an important user need?) And it begs the question that "a formal 639 subtag" is inevitable. And again, naked threats are more likely get get hackles up. </div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline">Perhaps something like:</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline"><br></div></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font face="times new roman, serif">There is a legitimate user need for a language subtag for </font></div><span style="font-family:'times new roman',serif">Elfdalian</span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline">. Up until now, these have always been supplied by ISO 639. However, there is the recourse in BCP47 for registration of a language subtag that is not based on ISO 639, and that process has been initiated. It would be far better for all users of BCP47 and ISO 639 if this step were not taken, but that depends on early action by the </div><span style="font-family:'times new roman',serif">639 RA</span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline">. Thus w</div><span style="font-family:'times new roman',serif">e write to the 639 RA in appeal, and </span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline">strongly request that the language code be added to ISO 639 within the next X months, to avoid this situation.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'times new roman',serif;display:inline"><br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
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Michael Everson * <a href="http://www.evertype.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.evertype.com/</a><br>
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