Subject: Re: [Ltru] ABNF for grandfathered/irregular

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:59:14 -0600

John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:

>> It would be best if we could eliminate future migration of 
>> grandfathered items to the redundant pile, since that would stabilize 
>> the syntax for all time.
>
> I believe we are already in that position.  We are not going to make 
> "lojban", "gaulish", "guoyu", "hakka", or "xiang" into variant tags 
> *with the meaning they currently have*, and there is no question of 
> "bok", "nyn", or "min" becoming extlang tags, nor of "nan" becoming a 
> second-level extlang tag.

While I wouldn't normally support a plan to limit by fiat, rather than 
by rule, what ietf-languages can and cannot register, I agree with this 
assessment:

1.  'lojban', 'guoyu', 'hakka', and 'xiang' correspond 1-to-1 with 
language subtags based on ISO 639-3, so it would make no sense to 
register these as variants, and would not be allowed by my reading of 
Section 3.6.  The only purpose would be to attempt to "legitimize" these 
grandfathered tags by turning them into redundant language-variant 
combinations, but as I've said before, this exercise would be pointless 
since it could not be applied to other grandfathered tags like "i-hak".

2.  'gaulish' could theoretically be registered since it does not 
correspond 1-to-1 with any single language subtag, but again, there is 
no practical benefit to replacing "cel-gaulish" with "'cel' plus 
'gaulish'".

3.  'min', 'nyn', 'bok', and 'nan' cannot become extlangs under our 
current proposed rules, since the first two are already language subtags 
based on ISO 639-2, and the other two will be language subtags based on 
ISO 639-3.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Arvada, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

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

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:23:12 -0400

Doug Ewell scripsit:

> Section 3.6.  

That is, no sense in registering them as variants *in the function they
play as grandfathered tags*.  We might register 'xiang' as a geographical
tag, although 'hunan' would do as well.

-- 
John Cowan        http://ccil.org/~cowan   [email-masked]
Lope de Vega: "It wonders me I can speak at all.  Some caitiff rogue did
rudely yerk me on the knob, wherefrom my wits still wander."
An Englishman: "Ay, a filchman to the nab betimes 'll leave a man
crank for a spell." --Harry Turtledove, Ruled Britannia
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:43:00 -0600

John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:

> That is, no sense in registering them as variants *in the function 
> they play as grandfathered tags*.  We might register 'xiang' as a 
> geographical tag, although 'hunan' would do as well.

Boy, would that ever be a bad idea.

---

From: "Phillips, Addison" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:57:15 -0700

> no practical benefit to replacing "cel-gaulish" with "'cel' plus

Well... last time I talked to him about it, the original registrant probably would not have agreed with you. I'll have to ping Chris and see how he feels about our permanently jarring up his thunder.

You or I might not appreciate a practical benefit, but others might and ietf-languages did register that unreplaced value. This is the sole example of a possible variant that we might make redundant in some kind of plausible manner. For that matter, we might make it redundant by fiat (as we did with some of the other redundant variants in 4646 times). I mean, after all, we have subtags like 'AQ' that don't provide a lot of meaning. Why not one variant? "tlh-gaulish" is probably more useful than "tlh-AQ"... :-D

Addison

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:11:59 -0400

Phillips, Addison scripsit:

> Well... last time I talked to him about it, the original registrant
> probably would not have agreed with you. I'll have to ping Chris and
> see how he feels about our permanently jarring up his thunder.

We aren't talking about deprecating cel-gaulish without a replacement.
We are just not going to register 'gaulish' as a variant tag, given that
Gaulish is not a variant.

The sensible approach IMHO would be to petition 639-3/RA to create a
macrolanguage 'Gaulish' that would encompass Transalpine and Cisalpine
Gaulish.  Alternatively, we could petition 639-5/RA to introduce a new
collection code.

-- 
A mosquito cried out in his pain,               John Cowan
"A chemist has poisoned my brain!"              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        The cause of his sorrow                 [email-masked]
        Was para-dichloro-
Diphenyltrichloroethane.                                (aka DDT)
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:09:42 -0600

"Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon dot com> wrote:

> I mean, after all, we have subtags like 'AQ' that don't provide a lot 
> of meaning. Why not one variant? "tlh-gaulish" is probably more useful 
> than "tlh-AQ"... :-D

'AQ' isn't something we (or ietf-languages) registered either 
individually or as part of a small, specially admitted group (like 
'EU').  It's officially assigned in ISO 3166-1 and was added to the 
Registry as part of a philosophy that did not involve cherry-picking.

---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:32:10 -0700

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> John Cowan

> Gaulish.  Alternatively, we could petition 639-5/RA to introduce a new

In general, coding such a category to facilitate interop with legacy usage should be at least worth considering.

eter

---

From: "Kent Karlsson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:02:48 +0200

Peter Constable wrote:
> In general, coding such a category to facilitate interop with 
> legacy usage should be at least worth considering.

What about i-mingo (Mingo/Unontuwaqkaaq)?

	/kent k

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:36:43 -0400

> What about i-mingo (Mingo/Unontuwaqkaaq)?

What about it?  It's a variety of Seneca that 639-3 does not treat
as an independent language, so ietf-languages can register 'mingo' as
a variant if they want to, (leading to "see-mingo").  Alternatively,
someone could ask 639-3 to change their mind, and if that failed, they
could ask ietf-languages to register it as a primary language.

Or not.

-- 
One Word to write them all,             John Cowan <[email-masked]>
  One Access to find them,              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
One Excel to count them all,
  And thus to Windows bind them.                --Mike Champion
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:32:35 -0700

As long as each grandfathered tag has a preferred value that is a
non-grandfathered tag, everything's fine. Even "i-default" could be given
that status - when you look at the RFCs where it is used, "und" would work
just fine. And "i-default" would still be valid, and perfectly acceptable
for use in those RFCs.
However, this all pales in priority to getting 4646bis out the door.

Mark

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:54:32 -0400

Mark Davis scripsit:

> non-grandfathered tag

At the moment that is not quite the case.  "en-gb-oed", "i-default",
"i-enochian", "i-mingo", "cel-gaulish", and "zh-min" will not have
preferred values; "zh-min" is being deprecated without a preferred
value, and the others will be left undeprecated.

> Even "i-default" could be given that status - when you look at the
> RFCs where it is used, "und" would work just fine.

I don't know what you mean by "work".  Text that is entirely in Korean
could appropriately be tagged "und" (for example, if you cannot identify
even the script), but it could not be tagged "i-default", for "i-default"
must be readable by monolingual anglophones.

> However, this all pales in priority to getting 4646bis out the door.

Emphatic +1.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  http://ccil.org/~cowan
Female celebrity stalker, on a hot morning in Cairo:
"Imagine, Colonel Lawrence, ninety-two already!"
El Auruns's reply:  "Many happy returns of the day!"
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:07:45 -0700

> Kent Karlsson

> What about i-mingo (Mingo/Unontuwaqkaaq)?

Can anybody produce content that can reasonably be assumed to be in that language?

Peter

---

From: "Kent Karlsson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:22:34 +0200

> Can anybody produce content that can reasonably be assumed to 

While I cannot produce or point to such content, I just noted
that there's this grandfathered tag that does not appear to be
special or oddball in any way, but appears to denote a real
language (and someone bothered to register a tag for it), that
does not have a mapping to a non-grandfatherd tag. I just found
that lack a little bit strange.

	/kent k

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:32:59 -0400

> Can anybody produce content that can reasonably be assumed to be in that language?

The original 1997 registration says:

Rabbit Stories: An Introduction to the Mingo Language. Thomas McElwain 
(thomas.mcelwain&pp.kolumbus.fi) and Jordan Lachler (lachler&unm.edu). 
Email for publication data. 1997.

(reading @ for &, I suppose)

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]   http://ccil.org/~cowan
Promises become binding when there is a meeting of the minds and consideration
is exchanged. So it was at King's Bench in common law England; so it was
under the common law in the American colonies; so it was through more than
two centuries of jurisprudence in this country; and so it is today.
       --Specht v. Netscape
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru