generic subtags

[Phillips, Addison]

> 
> On subject of generic tags: from what more experienced people said,
> I
> was given to understand there can be no generic tags? In case it is
> not
> so, the /akademia/ seems feasible choice.
> 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by generic in the preceding.

Subtags that do not include a year (i.e. they have a generic form) are entirely permitted.

Subtags that are generic are also permitted. However, generic subtags take no prefix; they're meaning must be applicable to many languages and to no language in particular for them to be likely to be approved (there is no formal prohibition against trying). Generic subtags are frowned upon by the reviewer, the list, and by RFC 4646 (which says that variants "SHOULD" have a Prefix field, which is to say, they must have one unless one has a very good reason not to).

'akademia' would be valid to register as a way of representing the Belarussian (and only Belarussian) orthography by including a prefix field for the Belarussian language in the registry record:

Type: variant
Subtag: akademia
Description: 'academic' variant of Belarussian
Prefix: be
Comment: The official, government sponsored variety
   which is formally taught in schools and commonly
   associated with the grammar published in 1959.


If you mean to encompass *all* academic forms, that type of subtag is frowned upon because the meaning would be different depending on the many academies, etc. that exist in the world. Such a subtag might look like:

Type: variant
Subtag: academic
Description: Formal form of a given language
Comment: A generic subtag used to distinguish the
   formal grammar and orthographic forms as established
   by a given language's authoritative reference body.
   Examples of these include the Académie française or Institute of
   linguistics of Academy of sciences of BSSR


Best Regards,

Addison

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.