registry vs. extensions...

Peter Constable petercon at microsoft.com
Mon Oct 20 16:43:40 CEST 2003


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-
> bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of John Cowan

> Unfortunately, ISO's process is not transparent.  Furthermore, ISO 639
> codes are for language _names_, not languages; there is no
authoritative
> source for what is meant by a particular language name.

There's hope that this situation will improve in the coming years.
Certainly for the work on ISO 639-3, one of the issues that needs to be
addressed is what are the intended semantics of existing IDs in parts 1
and 2. There have also been discussions regarding other work that would
move things in that direction.


> Ah, I see.  You are right about x-de-DE-mySubtag, but wrong about
> de-DE at mysubtag, which is a) a syntax error, and b) matches only de,
> since @ is not a delimiter.

Addison is suggesting a revised syntax (specified by a new RFC) in which
de-DE at mysubstag would not be a syntax error.


 
> I think this is a genuine problem that could be fixed by allowing the
> x subtag at arbitrary points:  then de-DE-x-mySubtag would match
> de-DE in practice and would be acceptable in principle.

This would also require a revised RFC, or else each tag of the form 

primary_subtag(-subtag)*-x(-subtag)* 

would need to be registered, which is what Addison wants to avoid.



Peter
 
Peter Constable
Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technologies
Microsoft Windows Division




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