Proposal for a new variant subtag of the french language (fr)

[Doug Ewell]

Michael Everson <everson at evertype dot com> wrote:

> I mean "ortograf" is a pretty bad label for what was described.
> Compare en-axelwijk.

The movement behind this orthography apparently uses the name 
"ortograf", in contrast with the traditional French spelling 
"orthographe".  Given that, it actually seems to be a fairly appropriate 
subtag value.

Rather than debating the exact value of the subtag, we might want to ask 
whether this is a suitable candidate for registration at all.  It seems 
to be a locally-sponsored proposal to create a reformed French spelling 
for "intellectual deficients."  Most of the Web sites that describe this 
orthography appear to be interrelated and have a close working 
relationship with the University of Montréal researchers who created it. 
The extent of adoption of this "new spelling standard" may be 
overstated.

The effort to create and promote this orthography is led by Mario 
Périard, who requested the registration of this subtag.  From 
http://www.ortograf.net/?q=fr/node/5 :

"Qui est derrière la norme Ortograf?
"La norme Ortograf est une initiative de Mario Périard, auquel se sont 
joints des collaborateurs de diverses origines au sein du groupe de 
développement de la norme Ortograf. La mission du groupe consiste à 
développer et promouvoir la norme Ortograf en vue d'en faire une 
orthographe communément acceptée du français."

I know we have not shied away from registering people's inventions 
before (Dr. Han Steenwijk admitted that the "1994" orthography for 
Resian was his invention), but I wonder how far we want to go down this 
path.  The ietf-languages group may not wish to be known as the place 
where people go to get their own inventions registered, similar to 
Omniglot or LangMaker for constructed scripts.

The creators of Web pages in this orthography apparently have not seen a 
need thus far to tag their own pages distinctly.  Instead of a language 
tag like "fr-x-alt" that would demonstrate the need, the University of 
Montréal and Société Logique pages are tagged simply "fr", while the 
home page at ortograf.net inexplicably uses the tag "frm", which stands 
for Middle French (ca. 1400-1600).  The understanding of IETF language 
tagging and BCP 47 leaves something to be desired here.

Perhaps it would be best to hold off on this request until there is more 
evidence of its appropriateness.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://home.roadrunner.com/~dewell
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
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