Formal request for "French (all periods)"

John Cowan cowan at ccil.org
Tue Feb 13 22:21:08 CET 2007


CE Whitehead scripsit:

> however, there are rules about what sort of subtags can be used with a 
> macrolanguage tag; by macrolanguage subtag do we mean extended language 
> subtag?  There are peculiar rules for the extended language subtag (but 
> I do not see any peculiar rules about macrolanguage subtags otherwise; 
> so it's my guess that the macrolanguage subtag, if not the same as an 
> extended language subtag, could not be used with other primary language 
> subtags such as fro, frm, and fr, the macrolanguage subtag would have to 
> be used alone; but either a 2- or 3- letter subtag would be o.k.; 
> someone correct me if I am wrong).

Quite right.  Macrolanguage subtags are just like any other language
subtags, except that in particular cases (listed in the 4645bis registry)
they can be used with extended language subtags.  Thus:

	'en' cannot be used with an extended language subtag (it is not
	a macrolanguage)

	'zh' can be used with 'cmn' or 'yue' or one of the other Chinese
	extended language subtags

	'aka' is a macrolanguage encompassing 'twi' and 'fat', but cannot
	be used with any extended language subtags (because 'twi' and
	'fat' are language subtags in their own right)

> You mean (fro), (frm), and (fr), which are indeed separated by time 
> periods; fra is out of date I think.

No, 'fra' is used in 639-2 and 639-3; we use 'fr' in RFC 4646 for
backward compatibility with 639-1.  Since I was talking primarily
to the 639-3 folks, I used their terminology.

> (I must note that the writers have noted that French is about the only 
> language that is broken up by date)

See below.

> And the macrolanguage tag will make it easier to identify Creoles and 
> such too (such as Haitian Creole).

I did not request that creole languages be added to the macrolanguage,
but perhaps they should be.  If and when the 639-3/RA acts, you can
add a comment to that effect.

> >This is by way of a test case; if the RA approves it, I will submit
> >similar forms for English, Dutch, (High) German, Greek, Gaelic,
> >Provencal/Occitan,
> ??? where does Provencal/Occitan go?  I understand that it is very close 
> to Catalan and Valencian; thus it might go with that group!!!

Occitan is already a macrolanguage encompassing several modern languages.
My proposal will be for a larger macrolanguage including also Old
Occitan ('pro').

> and Turkish.
> 
> John, are you then going to submit macrolanguage tag proposals primarily 
> to tag languages which have different varieties according to time???

That is my intent, yes.  It depends on how the RA reacts to my trial
balloon.

> I support something to accommodate the varieties of a language over time 
> (for cases when there is a mixture of the various varieties that is 
> being used) but worry about the problems were are going to get in with 
> the RFC 4646 syntax--my bet is no one wants to rewrite/redo either the 
> RFC 4646  or the various subtags we are now just getting!

There is no problem.  The new macrolanguage, if accepted, will not affect
the use of existing language tags at all.  It will simply provide an
alternative to the existing tags.

-- 
He made the Legislature meet at one-horse       John Cowan
tank-towns out in the alfalfa belt, so that     cowan at ccil.org
hardly nobody could get there and most of       http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
the leaders would stay home and let him go      --H.L. Mencken's
to work and do things as he pleased.              Declaration of Independence


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