Request for variant subtag fr 16th-c 17th-c

[John Cowan]

Mark Davis scripsit:

> why a generative region is so much better than a generative variant,
> eg that fr-FR, fr-BE, or fr-CH is so much better defined than fr-1500s,

Well, the primary difference is that in languages with de jure
orthographies, it is nation-states that set them, a point due to
P. Constable.

> just that if someone can make a reasonable case that in one or 
> more
> languages a designation by century makes sense, 

I can probably make a case that American English can be rationally
subdivided by decades, but I wouldn't want to see the LSR contain such
entries nevertheless.  Language changes continuously, and the units
of time into which that change is quantized is chosen ad hoc and for
convenience.

-- 
Is a chair finely made tragic or comic? Is the          John Cowan
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it? Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical,         http://ccil.org/~cowan
epical or dramatic?  If a man hacking in fury
at a block of wood make there an image of a cow,
is that image a work of art? If not, why not?               --Stephen Dedalus