Subject: Re: [Ltru] draft-15 posted...

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:49:13 -0600

John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:

> Min Nan is currently zh-min-nan, which will be deprecated in favor of 
> either nan or zh-nan.  Zh-min, on the other hand, is the collection 
> {'mnp', 'cdo', 'nan', 'czo'}, respectively the Min Bei 'northern', Min 
> Dong 'eastern', Min Nan 'southern', and Min Zhong 'central' Chinese 
> languages.  There is nothing to deprecate this to, because there is no 
> corresponding macrolanguage in -3 or collection in -5., so we are 
> stuck with it.

We don't have to have anything to deprecate it "to."  Deprecated can 
exist without Preferred-Value.  Look at region subtag 'SU' in the 
current Registry; it's deprecated (because ISO 3166-1 withdrew the code 
element) but there is no subtag that directly replaces it, because there 
is no one country that directly replaces the Soviet Union.  The same 
concept goes for "zh-min".

I've been going by the assumption that we would deprecate "zh-min" ever 
since draft-4645bis-00.  See Section 2.4 there, or 2.5 in the current 
draft.

> "zh-min" could be deprecated if 639-5 introduces a collection tag for 
> it;

Or if they don't.

Incidentally, this is one reason why I wrote on June 5 (msg10884.html) 
that users of BCP 47 may not understand our notion of "deprecation" as a 
back-door way to implement aliases, such that two subtags and/or tags 
are equally acceptable, but one is deprecated (it doesn't matter which 
one) so that search engines can canonicalize it away.  Sometimes when we 
say "deprecated," we really do mean "don't use this."

Kent Karlsson <kent dot karlsson14 at comhem dot se> wrote:

>> Roughly speaking, it is the collection of Sinitic languages without 
>> /f/, which separated from the other Sinitic languages very early, 
>> possibly before the Middle Chinese period that represents the 
>> underlying unity of the rest.
>
> So then it should have a "Scope: collection" field as well, but that 
> would not be gotten from 639-5, obviously. Not sure why this 
> collection is deprecated, given that we don't deprecate all collection 
> codes (as well as macrolanguage codes...). Deprecating collection 
> codes has been suggested (long ago by several persons, me included), 
> but does not seem to have gotten enough support. I think there is a 
> point in being able to indicate partial knowledge, though.

Adding "Scope: collection" and deprecating language subtags are two of 
the many, many things that we do ONLY to mirror the underlying standard. 
We need to get out of the mindset that we have a duty to rework the ISO 
standards.

--
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 

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---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:27 -0400

> concept goes for "zh-min".

I feel a little uneasy about the comparison.  The Soviet Union actually
did cease to exist (although Russia is its successor in international
law for most purposes: they got the U.N. Security Council seat, etc.)

But the Min languages have not been abolished: they exist just as they
did before.  When we encoded zh-min-nan rather than zh-min-nan, it was
because we expected to someday encode zh-min-bei at least, though that
day never came.

Still, it's not like I care that much.

> since draft-4645bis-00.  See Section 2.4 there, or 2.5 in the current 

Time to review 4645bis again, I guess.

> the many, many things that we do ONLY to mirror the underlying standard. 

+1

> We need to get out of the mindset that we have a duty to rework the ISO 

True, but in some cases it's a matter of exactly how to get out of
the way.

-- 
John Cowan   [email-masked]    http://ccil.org/~cowan
[R]eversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men, I usually [before
Darwin] defended the tenability of the received doctrines, when I had to do
with the [evolution]ists; and stood up for the possibility of [evolution] among
the orthodox --thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite
undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness.  --T. H. Huxley
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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:42:26 -0600

John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> also caught me:

>> Look at region subtag 'SU' in the current Registry; it's deprecated 
>> (because ISO 3166-1 withdrew the code element) but there is no subtag 
>> that directly replaces it, because there is no one country that 
>> directly replaces the Soviet Union.  The same concept goes for 
>> "zh-min".
>
> I feel a little uneasy about the comparison.  The Soviet Union 
> actually did cease to exist (although Russia is its successor in 
> international law for most purposes: they got the U.N. Security 
> Council seat, etc.)

Correct; I should have stayed away from the distracting semantic 
comparison.  I was probably thinking that none of the individual Min 
languages stands for all of them, but the analogy came out poorly.

My point is that the rules of BCP 47 do not prevent deprecation of a 
subtag or tag on the basis that no suitable Preferred-Value exists.

---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:54:51 -0700

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Doug Ewell

> We don't have to have anything to deprecate it "to."

I agree with that principle.

Peter