acade - LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM

[John Cowan]

Yury Tarasievich scripsit:

> Before anything else, the tag "acade" is plain silly. If at all
> unavoidable, the "akad" would seem at least somewhat more sensible
> choice -- taking 4 letters of the Latin transliteration and representing
> the valid abbreviation of the term, also being easy in practical use.

For technical reasons, an orthographic variant subtag must have 5, 6,
7, or 8 letters.

> Now, I don't quite see -- is it really *necessary* to put a subtag on
> the mainstream norm of the language, just because the diverging norm
> (be-tarask) got one? Were there any precedents?

Certainly.  For example, the current standard German orthography is tagged
"1996", whereas the previous standard (which is still in use in many
contexts) is tagged "1901".  Using neither tag indicates that one does not
know or does not care which is in use.  Note that these names are neutral:
they do not indicate whether you are for or against the 1996 reform.

Precisely the same would apply to "be-Latn" without a further identifying
subtag: it denotes any Latin-script orthography for Belarusian whatsoever.

> *what's there to describe*? It's "just there" for a long time, it's
> consistent with dialects, it's not confined to the Internet and it' whatsoever.
> not tied-in with any politics.

It still needs a name.

-- 
What is the sound of Perl?  Is it not the       John Cowan
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