Portuguese subtags [was Re: Ietf-languages Digest, Vol 104, Issue 7]

[Philip Newton]

2011/9/13 "António H F P A Emiliano (FCSH/UNL)" <ah.emiliano at fcsh.unl.pt>:
>> From: Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com>
>>
>> This was also my point: since the 1990 orthography is controversial and
>> some people may not adopt it, it may be necessary to distinguish what they
>> do write from the 1990 orthography.
>
> OK. And if you create a 1945 subtag you are then forced to distinguish that
> from the previous reform which is 1911.

Only if you have the need to distinguish such text.

As I understand it, Portuguese text nowadays is essentially a mixture
of 1945 and 1990 orthographies, so it is useful to tag those two
varieties.

Is there any pre-1945 text which needs to be tagged as such?

(Note: note "Is there any pre-1945 text" but "is there any pre-1945
text *which needs to be tagges as such*".)

As I understood, it, the use case is distinguishing "writing from
people who have adoped the 1990 reform" from "writing from people who
have not adopted the 1990 reform" - not distinguishing all historical
forms of the Portuguese language, ever. Just because it would be
technically possible to do so (by defining a multitude of subtags)
does not mean that it is necessary (much less desirable). Entia non
sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, and all that.

Cheers,
Philip
-- 
Philip Newton <philip.newton at gmail.com>