ISO 639-3 changes
Doug Ewell
doug at ewellic.org
Sun Jan 25 18:16:09 CET 2015
Here is my proposal for Description fields with click letters:
1. For ease in reviewing, I'd like to wait until we get through the 40+
ISO 639-3 changes before going back and fixing existing subtags. But,
since one of the ISO 639-3 changes will involve a language with a click
letter (ǂUngkue), we should determine a strategy now, so that the new
subtag will follow the pattern we establish for others.
2. Subtags should have two Description fields: one with the real click
letter and one with the ASCII fallback(s) used by 639-3.
2a. When we add ǂUngkue, my opinion is that we should also include an
ASCII fallback version (/=Ungkue), but I won't insist on that.
3. The first ASCII letter (A-Z) in the name should always be
capitalized.
4. For existing subtags, when we add a Description with a real click
letter, we can simultaneously "correct" any ASCII apostrophes. We have
already used both U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE (for Gwichʼin) and
U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (for N’Ko, both language and script),
and I would prefer to stick to one of these consistently for the African
languages.
5. We should not create "hybrid" Description fields that differ *only*
by type of apostrophe, as we currently have with N’Ko, since these are
hard to distinguish. (Yes, I know it is even harder to distinguish !
from ǃ .)
We only need to agree on items 2a and 3 in order to add ǂUngkue.
--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, USA | http://ewellic.org
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