Principles of Operation (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REQUEST FORM, Erzgebirgisch)

CE Whitehead cewcathar at hotmail.com
Mon Jan 28 18:01:03 CET 2008


Hi, all:
Can we have [de] as the prefix now and then change the prefix later, if it seems necessary. or is that not possible? If [de] includes all German languages and not only standard German, then both Franconian and Saxon are included in it, so it's not an incorrect subtag; I cannot tell from the registry whether it is meant to include just standard German or not. The only problem would this would be comprehensibility of the variety [erzgeb] to speakers of Standard German; I agree this can be a problem but it seems if someone wants standard German they have to request that (otherwise you could get German written with the phonetic alphabet, and more, not all of it comprehensible).(Thanks to information on this variety provided by Randy and Thomas, I'm just not convinced that sxu will be the correct prefix; the problem anyway with linguistic classification is that it's based in 19th century taxonomies-- you have an outline I II with subheadings, 'children,' whatever, 'A,' 'B,' I A.  B. But you cannot have a subheading, 'A,' that goes with both I and II. However I think it's possible for languages to evolve this way as the result of close ties between groups with a high amount of intermarriage and strong trade contacts.
--C. E. Whiteheadcewcathar at hotmail.com> From: dewell at roadrunner.com> To: ietf-languages at iana.org> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:24:15 -0800> CC: > .> > What is being proposed here is that 'de' be selected as the prefix for > 'erzgeb', not necessarily because it is the best choice, but because the > discussion is being held a few months before the alternative choice > 'sxu' becomes available. A possibly incorrect or imappropriate choice > is being advocated in preference to waiting a few months. That is what > I object to. I don't think the analogy with the "zh-Hant" tags is at > all accurate. A better analogy might be the "zh-cmn" tags which were > expected to become redundant, but will now be grandfathered due to the > decline and fall of extlangs. Can we add a prefix in a few months if it becomes available?  Personally I'd like to see the choice of 2 prefixes since I am not sure that sxu is the correct prefix for 'erzgeb.'
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