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

[Michael Everson]

At 23:09 -0800 2006-12-14, Randy Presuhn wrote:

>It appears to meet the requirements from RFC 4646.  The argument
>against these specific registration requests seems to be that
>the language in question is insufficiently distinct from today's
>French.

It seems vague to me. 16th-century implies dates in terms of 
generative subtags, so I don't really want to go there. Is 16siecl 
"better"? I don't know.

>However, it seems to me that the distinction is at least
>as great as that involved in "OED" English.

Not so, this is a precise editorial practice.

>The point is that someone working with these language variants believes he has
>a legitimate need to distinguish these variants, and believes that 
>the distinction should be available to others.

Well, not to prejudice the present discussion, that opens the door to 
a lot of loonies. :-)

>Unless the participants on this list believe the request identifies 
>the same language variant as an existing subtag, if the request is 
>well-formed and
>the references are in order, I think we should accept it, although
>I also think that using a string that doesn't have generic connotations
>might shorten the discussion.

It seems to me that this is Late Middle French or Early Modern 
French. I would be more comfortable with a tag that pointed to a 
particular orthographic authority, such as a dictionary. That is what 
en-GB-oed does, and de-1901 and de-1996 do.
-- 
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com