New Last Call: 'Tags for Identifying Languages' to BCP

[John Cowan]

Bruce Lilly scripsit:

> There is a limited supply of 2-letter codes and the supply
> of 3-digit codes is only slightly greater.  Reassignment of
> codes from such a limited supply is inevitable.  

In the very long run, yes; but even the 75-octet limit probably won't
stand in the *very* long run.  Countries and languages, as opposed
to codes for them, don't come and go like IETF protocols: many of
them have centuries of history, or half a century in the case of the
post-colonialist countries; the events of 1991-93 were historically
anomalous.

> Too late. King Canute commands the tide not to come in, but
> his feet still get wet.  

Canute was making a moral object lesson about the limitations of
kingship, not acting like an idiot.

> But I'm not concerned with translations, but with the
> definitions. And currently the definitions are available
> in French and English.

What of it?  In what case does the provision of a French name
significantly tighten the definition provided by the English
name (or for that matter vice versa)?

> Removing that requirement [for registration] -- as the draft would do
> -- necessitates a specific upper bound on tag length that will work
> with existing core protocols, to replace the reviewer, Area Director,
> and community review process that ensure that current registered tags
> work with those protocols.

Michael, I assume you're ignoring this kerfuffle, and rightly so.
But for the record, have you ever been given cause to take into
account a hard limit in the length of language tags?

-- 
Here lies the Christian,                        John Cowan
        judge, and poet Peter,                  http://www.reutershealth.com
Who broke the laws of God                       http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        and man and metre.                      jcowan at reutershealth.com