Variant subtag proposal: Høgnorsk variety of Norwegian

[Thorgeir Holm]

<hermer Michael Everson frå 01.01.2010 20:52>

> It is clear that høgnorsk is in some sense
> 
> Indo-European
> Germanic
> North-Germanic
> East-Scandinavian
> Norwegian
> Nynorsk
> Høgnorsk

It's West-Scandinavian. And that's not just a nitpicking remark, but an 
essential point, because 'nn' is West-Scandinavian and 'nb' 
East-Scandinavian, meaning that the macro 'no' doesn't fit into this 
scheme at all! The macro 'no' is simply a political creation, and people 
fill it with whatever ideas they have about this concept.

> It should be sub-tagged nn-hognorsk and not further up the tree.
> no-hognorsk is in some sense valid, but no less valid than gem-hognorsk

It is vital that 'no-hognorsk' be valid, the practical circumstances in 
Norwegian language tagging being as chaotic as they are. I guess the 
motivation for the expressed wish to explicitly state 'no' as a valid 
prefix is grounded in this fact, and in the fear that what is not 
explicitly expressed, might one day no longer be valid.

Thinking exclusively normative, Michael Everson et al. are of course 
right that 'hognorsk' should be tagged directly under 'nn'. The problem 
is that the macro 'no' doesn't follow this normative thinking, and so 
there is a wish to follow the terrain and not the map.

Thorgeir