Request for variant subtag fr 16th-c 17th-c Resubmitted!

[Doug Ewell]

CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail dot com> wrote:

> Hi, did IETF reject my proposals for subtags then?  (fr, frm, 16siecle 
> or 1606Nict and 17siecle or 1694acad??)

It's not IETF per se that accepts or rejects subtags, but rather the 
Language Subtag Reviewer (Michael Everson) who is appointed by IETF, and 
who was confirmed in that role by IESG on 2006-02-21.

In any event, I believe Michael's last action on these requests was on 
December 18:  "I will not accept either of these subtags unless 
associated with one and only one prefix."  I don't recall whether your 
resubmitted proposals still have the basic feature of associating the 
proposed subtags with both "fr" and "frm".

> If so I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to resubmit my request 
> with  just two tags, one for the 16siecle (frm; I might use 1606Nict 
> or maybe just refer to Montaigne's Essais in the tag with a date, 
> 1690s or a name Montgne or Essais) and one for the 17siecle (fr) 
> probably 1694acad for the 17siecle and even a country code could be 
> added!

A country code, or rather a region subtag, can be added to any 
non-generative tag.  This is recommended if and only if it help to 
identify the language variety (which appears to be the case here).  This 
group does not register region subtags proposed by individuals, only 
those guided by ISO 3166 and UN M.49.

> The subtag for the variant would in some way indicate that the 
> language was in transition, which would make me happy!

I don't know if there's any wording about this, but I'm a bit concerned 
about how much transitional state can be captured in language tags. 
Languages are always in transition, sometimes more so, sometimes less 
so.

> I would not know how to take the issue up for macro language in any 
> case, but feel a French macrolanguage would be a good idea but that is 
> apparently outside of IETF's jurisdiction

Macrolanguages are completely within the jurisdiction of ISO 639-3.  If 
you feel they should broaden the scope of the macrolanguage concept to 
cover early/middle/modern distinctions, you should take it up with them.

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