Language subtag modification request: frr Suppres-Script Latn

[Peter Constable]

> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-
> bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Marion Gunn


> FWIW, I'd be even happier with "no discernible linguistic content",
> leaving our options open to shift texts from there into another
> category, if later 'discerned', but glad anyway to have that much of an
> accommodation, even as it stands.

In general terms, I don't think there's any significant difference between the two. A tag must always be interpreted modulo "this is the assessment the author chose to declare at the time of tagging". The declaration isn't necessarily tied to their declaration; they may discern one thing but for some reason decide it will make more sense for processing purposes to declare another. Also, an author can re-tag their content at any time according to what they choose to declare about it; so, you might not discern any linguistic content today but next year change your opinion and re-tag it.

But consider also what are *good* uses of this tag. The best use scenario for this tag is a case in which there really is no question of linguistic content. The particular scenario that led to the request for this tag was needing an option for indicating the language of the audio track in a silent film when you've got an application that forces *some* choice for language -- you need a value that corresponds to "no language in the audio content". In such scenarios, there's no question of ability to discern what the language is.

It sounds like the scenario you have in mind is different from this -- one in which there is linguistic content but the identity of the language is not yet determined. You might choose to say "no linguistic content" while the identity is not yet determined, but I think "undetermined" makes much better sense.

(BTW, there might also be need for a tag meaning "unknown" -- the analysis is complete, and the determination is that the language is one about which there is no other human knowledge.)



Peter Constable