Subject: RE: [Ltru] Re: DD, YD, and YU (was: Question)

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:50:22 -0800

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

> The main value of allowing 'DD' as well as 'DE' is that tags in 'DD'
> were allowed under RFC 1766.  Yes, I know that means we have a code
for
> present-day Germany and a code for the former East Germany, but no
code
> for the former West Germany.  I don't see that as a significant gap in
> tagging flexibility.  What does everyone else think?

I just started thinking about how country mergers and splits affect
language tags, and quickly realized this can be somewhat tricky. It's
more complicated than if two entries in ISO 639-3 get merged, for
instance. 

For instance, in a merger, factors include:

- If countries AA and BB join, is the code for the new entity one of AA
or BB, or is it rather something distinct, CC?

- Were there real differences between AA and BB wrt a given language, or
were users simply blindly applying tags of the form ll-CC since they
could and were under the impression that that's the preferred form?

- If there were real differences before, do they disappear after the
merger? (This might possibly happen, for instance if the differences are
spelling.)

No time to elaborate any further at the moment.

Peter Constable

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---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:33:47 -0500

> or BB, or is it rather something distinct, CC?

That would tend to depend on whether the new entity adopted a distinct name.
AFAIK the last time that happened was in 1958, when Egypt and Syria merged
to form the United Arab Republic; the union dissolved in 1961, although
Egypt retained the name until 1971.

> merger? (This might possibly happen, for instance if the differences are

It doesn't much matter from the POV of standardizers, since whatever was
valid before is still valid, so ll-AA and ll-BB tags would still be so.
Language-taggers would have to make their own decisions.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
        --Gerald Holton

---

From: "Debbie Garside" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:36:46 +0100

>valid before is still valid, so ll-AA and ll-BB tags would still be so.

Agreed 

>Language-taggers would have to make their own decisions.

Surely, if there are two options for tagging it is not standardised, it
would have to be distinct... as the merger creates new meaning and that
meaning is neither ll-AA or ll-BB, as was previously known, ll-CC should be
created and ll-AA and ll-BB deprecated (if this means what I think it means,
as in, stays in registry for backward compatibility) but with a
recommendation not to use) or at least if not deprecated, annotated.

Debbie

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of John Cowan
Sent: 30 March 2005 18:34
To: Peter Constable
Cc: LTRU Working Group
Subject: Re: [Ltru] Re: DD, YD, and YU (was: Question)

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  www.ccil.org/~cowan
www.reutershealth.com
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
        --Gerald Holton