request for subtag for Elfdalian

Kent Karlsson kent.karlsson14 at telia.com
Mon Mar 7 12:12:02 CET 2016


Den 2016-03-07 05:24, skrev "Peter Constable" <petercon at microsoft.com>:

> The description of language development and use in the Elfdalian proposal
> makes it sound like there is very limited literature,

Note again that the request was for a "part 3" code, NOT a "part 2" code.

> and that the status is
> one of a language community that lives in the context of a very developed,
> culturally dominant language

True, but that does not make it any less of a language.

> and that is in very early stages of efforts to
> develop their language.

Early? It's rather a late stage effort of preservation. The language
(spoken) goes back several hundred years.

> Several attempts to get governmental recognition have
> not been successful; a concern that reasonably _should_ be in the minds of the
> RA

No, that _should_ be completely irrelevant for the RA, which should only
look at the linguistic arguments.

Aside 1: There are tree codes for Sami languages spoken in Sweden, for
Northern Sami, Pite Sami and Lule Sami. Only one "samiska" (no mention of
language code) has the status as official (regional) minority language,
presumably Northern Sami, since the other two are near extinct.

Aside 2: Many immigrant languages have vastly many more users in Sweden
than any of the existing official minority languages. You frequently find
information in Arabic, Persian, Somali, etc. None of which has the status
as official minority language.

> (I have no idea if it was a consideration) is whether this request is an
> indirect strategy to assert status on the language. Looking at those criteria
> alone, one might say that the situation is not unlike that of the Valencian
> request.
> 
> I'm not at all saying I think the current decision is the correct one. I'm
> just surprised at how readily you seem to discount the RA's decision over
> something that, from what I've seen (granted I have not looked into linguistic
> evidence), is not an obviously-wrong decision.




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