LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM (R3): pinyin

[Randy Presuhn]

Hi -

>From: Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com>
>Sent: Sep 7, 2008 1:09 PM
>To: ietflang IETF Languages Discussion <ietf-languages at iana.org>
>Subject: Re: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM (R3): pinyin
...
>fonipa has no prefix, and pinyin phonetic orthography can be applied  
>to other languages.
...

The pinyin orthography is highly optimized for the phonology
of Mandarin Chinese.  It would be terribly ill-suited for use
with Vietnamese, English, German, French, and Russian, to name
just a few languages for which the it lacks sufficient tone
notation, vowel distinctions, stress markers, or consonants.

The registration request is for a specific orthography of a specific language,
which happens to reflect that language's phonology rather well.
It is not a general-purpose transcription mechanism, and we shouldn't
try to turn it into one.

Randy