Reshat Sabiq's requests for two Tatar orthographic variants

[Doug Ewell]

I'd like to remind the list and the Reviewer that the two registration 
forms submitted by Reshat Sabiq, for variant subtags related to the 
Tatar language, have now gone well past the standard two-week review 
period, and decisions on these requests need to be made.  (The 
"decision" might be to extend the review period for another two weeks, 
but simply ignoring the requests will not do.)

References:
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2006-September/005017.html
(September 26, 48 days ago)

http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2006-October/005141.html
(October 21, 22 days ago)

I have some comments about these proposals.

In general I support them, and feel that they fall outside the current 
debate over how to encode phonetic transcription models such as IPA. 
They are orthographic conventions used at one time or another by native 
writers of Tatar (by preference or otherwise) and not for any special 
linguistic purpose.  To my mind, the requested subtags are similar in 
nature to the German "1901" and "1996" variant subtags.

I'd like to suggest that the proposed subtag "iqtel" be changed to the 
more descriptive "iqtelif", as Reshat described in the proposal form. 
There is not really a significant advantage to choosing a 5-letter 
subtag over a 7-letter subtag simply because it is shorter; two 7-letter 
variants for Armenian dialects were recently approved.  We should use 
the ASCII-folded description for this subtag: "Idil-Ural-Qirim Tatar 
Elifbasi".

I also suggest that the subtag "ussrlatn" be changed to "janalif", to 
provide a better parallel with "iqtelif" and because that is the 
ASCII-folded version of one of the accepted names for the orthography. 
The Qazan Tatar meaning, "new alphabet," should not be construed as 
misleading users into thinking this is the truly "new" (i.e. "current") 
usage.  The word "new" is commonly used to name things that eventually 
lose their newness (cf. "New" Coke and Windows "New Technology").  A 
Description field such as "Historical Unified Turkic Latin Alphabet 
(1930s)" might be helpful.

As a side note, we should ensure that all political references to the 
motives for introducing either of these orthographic conventions are 
removed (e.g. references to "human rights violations").  These do not 
provide the user with any insight in choosing the correct tag.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages