Subject: [Ltru] grandfathered tags and generative capacity

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 18:31:35 -0700

I can't remember if this has been discussed. I'm thinking about what a
person should do in a particular scenario, and wondering if my thoughts
align with those of others here.

We're defining a generative mechanism that doesn't require registration
of particular combinations, and we're defining a morphology that will
generally make it clear what combination of subtags a person should use
to denote a particular distinction. So, for instance (anticipating the
use of extlang in 3066ter), if someone wants a tag to denote Cantonese
written in simplified characters for use in Hong Kong, they would
generate the combination zh-yue-Hans-HK.

That's all pretty straightforward.

But now throw into this mix the fact that we have certain grandfathered
tags - grandfathered because they don't fit the general syntax. What
does someone do if they need to denote a category that's a restriction
on something for which there's a grandfathered tag? For example, what
does someone use to denote Mandarin written in traditional characters
for use in Mainland China? The issue here is that Mandarin Chinese has a
grandfathered tag of zh-guoyu. 

It seems that there are four logical possibilities:

1) They must ignore the grandfathered tag and generate a tag from
subtags as though the grandfathered tag didn't exist; e.g.
zh-cmn-Hant-CN.

2) They must register a complete tag that's derived from this
grandfathered tag; e.g. zh-guoyu-Hant-CN.

3) The subtag "guoyu" gets treated like a variant, and they simply
generate a tag using that variant; e.g. zh-Hant-CN-guoyu.

4) They treat the grandfathered tag zh-guoyu as though it were a ll-ext
combination, and generate a tag by adding additional subtags to the
right as needed; e.g. zh-guoyu-Hant-CN.

Now, (2) isn't possible since there will no longer be any mechanism for
registering complete tags. And (4) isn't permitted by the syntax. Option
(3) appears to be suggested by the fact that the draft registry Doug
prepared has "guoyo" as a variant (with "zh-guoyu" being considered,
strictly speaking, redundant, not grandfathered). But, I also see
nothing preventing someone from adopting option (1).

The problem I see with (3) is the inconsistency between Mandarin and
Cantonese (say): the one uses a variant subtag, while the other uses an
extlang subtag:

zh-Hant-CN-guoyu

zh-yue-Hant-CN

That seems likely to confuse some. The problem with (1) is the
inconsistency between shorter/more generic tags and longer/more fully
qualified tags:

zh-guoyu

zh-cmn-Hant / zh-cmn-CN / zh-cmn-Hant-CN / etc.

The latter problem has a potential remedy in the form of deprecating
zh-guoyu - though you can't eliminate existing usages that may be out
there. I see no potential remedy for the former problem, though.

This struck me because I just finished writing to someone representing
the Motion Picture Association who had written to the ISO 639/RA Joint
Advisory Committee looking for a solution to their language tagging
problems. I was explaining that RFC 3066 bis/ter would provide all they
needed, but the examples he was giving involved Chinese, and after
explaining what tags he could use, I found myself also explaining why
the pattern in zh-yue-Hant-CN was different from the pattern in
zh-Hant-CN-guoyu.

So, I guess what this boils down to is a suggestion that zh-guoyu,
zh-hakka, and zh-xiang be deprecated. Probably also cel-gaulish as well.

Peter Constable

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 22:26:13 -0400

> zh-hakka, and zh-xiang be deprecated. Probably also cel-gaulish as well.

We can't deprecate them until ISO 639-3 comes on line, and even then
we can't directly deprecate cel-gaulish, because there's no exact
639-3 equivalent.

Can you get the RA (proto-RA?) to allocate a macrolanguage code for
Gaulish with Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaulish encompassed by it?
That would solve the problem.

-- 
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  [email-masked]
In might the Feanorians / that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien / with burning and with broken troth.
and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o'er the roaring tide.
        --the Earendillinwe