Proposed new variant subtag: pre1917

[Avram Lyon]

2010/9/17 Doug Ewell <doug at ewellic.org>
> CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail dot com> wrote:
> > Also, if the name of the second is yet undecided my preference is for
> > [ru1918].
>
> Avram had originally mentioned (September 8) that this variant could be
> used for 'orv' as well as 'ru'.  Actually I'm surprised this prefix
> hasn't shown up on any of the registration forms for either subtag.

The possible wider extent of the luna1918 subtag makes me
uncomfortable with ru1918. In addition to 'orv', I think that there
may also be implications for some minority language that had already
used the Cyrillic script before 1918 and the spelling of Russian loan
words in those languages-- specifically, I'm thinking of Chuvash, but
there are probably other examples among the Siberian languages.

As for the content of the prefix field in the registration form, I
thought that it specified the expected prefix, but that it didn't
preclude the meaningful use of the subtag with other nonspecified
prefixes for which the subtag would properly apply. If this is the
case, then I don't really think that the reprinting and orthographic
modernization of Old Russian (orv) texts is enough of a corpus of
taggable texts to justify adding 'orv' to the prefix field. If I'm
misunderstanding the purpose of the prefix field, please let me know
and I will adjust the subtag requests accordingly.

Best wishes,

Avram