fon* variants

[Frank Ellermann]

CE Whitehead wrote:
 
> For me 1694 is too precise; I want to include a slightly
> wider period including some of its variety but not so wide
> as simply fr or frm.

Okay, I can't judge it, I used the "1694" only as an example
in a thread about "generic", "truly generic", and "specific"
variants.

You're definitely going for a "specific" variant, bound to fr.
Unsuited for other languages unless that is later specified
in additional prefixes.

> I myself was disappointed to discover that moyen francais
> was frm and not something more appropriate like fr-moyen

"frm" is an ISO 639-2 code, it works in language tags, but 
also everywhere else where 639-2 is used.  

A hypothetical "fr-moyen" would only work in language tags.

In that sense "frm" is "better" than "fr-moyen", if you
define "better" = more widely used / supported.  If you
define "better" as "I want that as proper subset of 'fr'",
then "fr-moyen" would be better.

> very accessible to modern French speakers.

With my school French I'd be lost, like I was lost with
Michael's example (Spenser's poem).  My personal limit 
is prose by Dickens, I can read it (without spending most
of the time looking up yon, hither, tither, durst, etc.)

Frank