Language subtag registration for acor1990 (ammended from ao1990)

António H F P A Emiliano (FCSH/UNL) ah.emiliano at fcsh.unl.pt
Thu Aug 25 18:14:31 CEST 2011


On 2011/08/25, at 15:59, Philip Newton wrote:

> 2011/8/25 "António H F P A Emiliano (FCSH/UNL)"  
> <ah.emiliano at fcsh.unl.pt>:
>>
>> Earlier periods should be considered: pre1214, 1214, 1255, 1536, 15th
>> century,  ...
>
> The language subtag registry does not go about attempting to create a
> complete set of subtags, especially for variant subtags.
>
> Those get registered by people who feel a need for them - the lack of
> a particular subtag does not mean that such a subtag is not useful; it
> just means that nobody has registered it yet.

OK. I see.

> Registering subtags "for completeness", without a concrete need, is
> not necessary.

Not necessary but still useful for systemic reasons.
Like when you include a new character in the Universal Character Set  
to pair it with another or to complete a set.

>> Regional variants should also be encoded in subtags: at least one  
>> for each
>> the signatories of the Treaty of 1990.
>
> I imagine this could be achieved by using the country subtags:
> pt-BR-1990 vs pt-PT-1990, for example.

Hmm. It certainly is worth considering.

>> No tags for NL in that registry.
>> Their *absence* should be *food for thought* in this instance.
>
> I don't agree.

OK. I see your point (qv supra) & will not press it.

>> Does one really need language subtags which refer to spelling  
>> reforms?
>
> That depends *entirely* on the "one". Perhaps this is the best way to
> make the point.
>
> When someone comes along and says, "I have material which I wish to
> tag with language subtags. I have a business need to distinguish
> between [variety 1] and [variety 2], and would like to propose two
> subtags to cover them", that's when variant subtags get created.

OK.

> It's hard to say beforehand what subtags will be needed because
> people's business needs vary.

OK. Agreed. But one can foresee that the inclusion of a particular  
tag *may* lead to inclusion of others.
Again I value systemic factors and considerations.

>> We got along pretty well in PT without <1911> and <1945> subtags.
>> I mean 1911 was a major reform that changed drammatically the  
>> outlook of the
>> written Portuguese language in Portugal (typographico > tipográfico,
>> grammatica > gramática, archetypo > arquétipo, millennio >  
>> milénio). No need
>> for it was felt in past 100 yrs...
>> Shouldn’t one wait till the 1990-reform is fully enforced in  
>> Portugal and
>> the remaining countries to add the subtag?
>
> I believe this is a question to be addressed to João Miguel Neves, who
> proposed the subtag, not to the ietf-languages list.

OK. The author of the proposal bears the burden of supplying data &  
arguments but I don’t think that you can say that a matter such as  
this should be addressed to any particular individual or any  
particular interest, regardless of exiosting proposals. I mean I do  
think this is something the list could address as a matter of  
principle (and policy maybe). After all we're talking about tagging a  
major world language here.

Many thanks. Best regards. - A.

António Emiliano
Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)
Departamento de Linguística
ah.emiliano at fcsh.unl.pt


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