Subject: [Ltru] Re: Variant tags for sl-rozaj: History and preliminaries Draft of message

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:00:09 -0700

John Cowan wrote:
> 
>> My gut feeling is that this is governed by the word "prefix": all of the 
>> subtags that make up the Prefix field for Subtag X must appear in the 
>> tag BEFORE Subtag X is added.  I can see how a language lawyer might 
>> argue this point, though.
> 
> Yes.  Let's fix this bug in 4646bis.
> 

The meaning of prefix really should be clear in the text. When John says 
"let's fix this bug", I presume he means that we should explicitly say 
that all prefix subtags must appear to the left of the variant in question.

To that, I can say: +1

Copying ltru, where this discussion should continue.

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.
Chair -- W3C Internationalization Core WG

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.

_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:06:07 -0700

On this issue...

I do note that the section on variants currently says:

--
Variant subtag records in the language subtag registry MAY include one 
or more 'Prefix' fields, which indicate the language tag or tags that 
would make a suitable prefix (with other subtags, as appropriate) in 
forming a language tag with the variant.
--

The word "suitable prefix" at least conveys some intention for the 
subtags to fall to the left of the variant in question.

I modified this to say:

--
Variant subtag records in the language subtag registry MAY include one 
or more 'Prefix' fields. The 'Prefix' indicates the language tag or tags 
that would make a suitable prefix (with other subtags, as appropriate) 
in forming a language tag with the variant. That is, each of the subtags 
in the prefix MUST appear before the variant in a valid tag.
--

Note here the use of the word 'valid' in conjunction with MUST. We 
required the prefix to be present (using extended language range rules), 
but didn't make the position of the subtags clear in the section on 
classes of conformance. I added the [[[marked sentence]]] in this 
snippet from that section:

--
For each subtag that has a 'Prefix' field in the registry, the Prefix 
matches the language tag using <xref target="RFC4647">Extended 
Filtering</xref>. That is, each subtag in the Prefix is present in the 
tag  and in the same order. [[[Furthermore, all of the Prefix's subtags 
MUST appear before the subtag.]]]
--

I also modified the text in extended language subtag to say:

--
Each extended language subtag MUST only be used in tag immediately 
following the exact sequence of subtags that appears in the 'Prefix' 
field in its registry record.
--

In the section on registry format, we had:

--
Prefix's field-body contains a language tag with which this subtag MAY 
be used to form a new language tag, perhaps with other subtags as well. 
This field MUST only appear in records whose 'Type' field-body is 
'variant' or 'extlang'.
--

I changed this to read:

--
Prefix's field-body contains a language tag with which this subtag MAY 
be used to form a new language tag, perhaps with other subtags as well. 
The Prefix's subtags MUST appear before the subtag for the tag to be 
considered valid. This field MUST only appear in records whose 'Type' 
field-body is 'variant' or 'extlang'.
--

In the subsection on Prefix I made an edit to say:

--
The field-body of the 'Prefix' field consists of an extended language 
range whose subtags are appropriate to use with this subtag: each of the 
subtags in one of the subtag's Prefix fields MUST appear before the 
variant in a valid tag.
--

Note again the use of the term 'valid' corresponds to MUST appropriately.

Comments?

Addison

Addison Phillips wrote:
> John Cowan wrote:
>>
>>> My gut feeling is that this is governed by the word "prefix": all of 
>>> the subtags that make up the Prefix field for Subtag X must appear in 
>>> the tag BEFORE Subtag X is added.  I can see how a language lawyer 
>>> might argue this point, though.
>>

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 08:33:45 -0700

> On this issue...

I was surprised how many places this needed to be fixed.  Any time we try to 
say the same thing, or close, in multiple places, there's a chance they 
won't all agree with one another.  But I'm glad Addison went through and 
found all these.

> The word "suitable prefix" at least conveys some intention for the subtags 
> to fall to the left of the variant in question.

Correct.  For my part I understood the existing text just fine, with its 
heavy dependence on the word "prefix."  I suppose we've learned lately that 
ordinary words like "miscellaneous" and "prefix" mean different things to 
different people, and some extra clarification is often needed.

> That is, each of the subtags in the prefix MUST appear before the variant 
> in a valid tag.
> --
>
> Note here the use of the word 'valid' in conjunction with MUST.

That's right.  "sl-biske-rozaj" would be well-formed but not valid.

I think these changes should be sufficient.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages