Co-language and other miscellany (was: Re: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM)

[Doug Ewell]

Karen Broome <Karen underscore Broome at spe dot sony dot com> wrote:

> The mention of a "co-language" is out of scope. The entry seeks to 
> help identify the language assigned to the code, nothing more. I do 
> not think we want to go down that path.

I agree.

Although CE and others who are relatively new to the list would not know 
this, the question of whether to make the Language Subtag Registry a 
broad compendium of language information has already been discussed, 
more than once, both here and on LTRU, and the decision was fairly 
conclusive that it should contain little more than what is necessary to 
help users identify the language (script, region, variant) associated 
with each subtag.

The information that Valencian is spoken alongside Spanish, or that most 
Valencian speakers are bilingual in Spanish, or whatever, is interesting 
from a linguistic standpoint but not necessary to identify the language. 
How many languages worldwide are spoken on a "co" basis with English or 
French?  I don't think we want to try to identify the hundreds or 
thousands of cases like this, and I don't see what is different about 
Valencian in this regard.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
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