Changing definition of German (was: Re: ISO 639-3 releases list of 2009 changes)

[Randy Presuhn]

Hi -

> From: "Mark Davis ☕" <mark at macchiato.com>
> To: "Doug Ewell" <doug at ewellic.org>
> Cc: <ietf-languages at iana.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 11:04 AM
> Subject: Re: Changing definition of German (was: Re: ISO 639-3 releases list of 2009 changes)
>
> It appears not to make much difference; they blithely did it with
> Lithuanian. The discussion with respect to German has gotten off track; my
> view is that they should have treated ALL ISO 639-2/1 codes as if the
> language name were prefixed by standard; Standard French, Standard Arabic,
> Standard Chinese. Then we wouldn't always be faced with the potential
> instability of changing a perfectly normal language code into a macrocode.
...

While I don't like the "macro" status changing, I come to the opposite conclusion
regarding "standard".  I view "standard" German as a specific variety of German,
just as Standard French is a specific (officially codified!) version of a
larger thing called French.  As such, I'd prefer to use a variant subtag
to indicate the specific variety, when there is a need to make the distinction.

> But I agree that this discussion is pointless, and I'll say no more on it.

Yeah, we've all said all this before, in one form or another.

Randy