Subject: Re: [Ltru] Preferred Values for Irregular Tags

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 21:44:51 -0600

Mark Davis <mark dot davis at icu dash project dot org> wrote:

> %%
> Type: grandfathered
> Tag: cel-gaulish
> Description: Gaulish
> Added: 2001-05-25
> %%

Discussed previously by others.  ISO 639-3 must have some reason for not 
lumping Cis and Trans together.

> %%
> Type: grandfathered
> Tag: en-GB-oed
> Description: English, Oxford English Dictionary spelling
> Added: 2003-07-09
> %%

Before people get too excited about 'oxford', remember that in 2003 when 
this tag was proposed, there was opposition to 'oxford' because the tag 
was supposed to reflect the usage prescribed by the dictionary, not the 
prevalent usage in the city of Oxford.  Of course, at the time 'oed' was 
syntactically legal, whereas now it would not be.

> %%
> Type: grandfathered
> Tag: i-default
> Description: Default Language
> Added: 1998-03-10
> %%

I oppose messing around with this.  It exists because of RFC 2277, which 
specified its use for a very limited set of circumstances.  Trying to 
normalize this one away might be more messy than the results would 
justify.

> %%
> Type: grandfathered
> Tag: i-enochian
> Description: Enochian
> Added: 2002-07-03
> %%

Should try to get this registered in ISO 639-* first, according to our 
rules.  If they reject it, and we go to the effort of registering a 
language subtag 'enochian' just to provide a normalized tag for Ye Olde 
Magickal Texts, then I'll be back with another proposal for Unilingua.

> %%
> Type: grandfathered
> Tag: i-mingo
> Description: Mingo
> Added: 1997-09-19
> %%

I really don't understand why this is not in ISO 639-3 to begin with.

> %%
> Type: grandfathered
> Tag: zh-min
> Description: Min, Fuzhou, Hokkien, Amoy, or Taiwanese
> Added: 1999-12-18
> Deprecated: 2029-09-09
> %%

I see no point in doing anything with this.  "zh-min" was apparently 
proposed and registered under the faulty assumption that it was 
necessary as a basis for "zh-min-nan", which was the tag really wanted. 
Any content tagged "zh-min", and I doubt there is any although you never 
know, is almost certainly mistagged anyway, and might not even be Min 
Nan.

As with Shawn's desire to capture fallback rules in the Registry, I 
understand Mark's desire to normalize away all the ugly irregular tags, 
huddled under the Spirit's robes as they are.  I know he's proposed this 
in the past.  The problem I'm having is that these crufty tags won't 
disappear from the Registry; they'll just be replaced with new, regular 
tags for the same things, actually (though slightly) increasing the 
amount of normalization that must be done.  And some of these tags are 
crufty in more ways than one:

Q: What's worse than a tag for Europanto?
A: Two different tags for Enochian.

--
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, 8 May 2008 00:48:26 -0400

> normalize this one away might be more messy than the results would 

I agree.  i-default is a very special case that should be left alone;
it's a protocol element.

> I really don't understand why this is not in ISO 639-3 to begin with.

Because it's almost certainly (we can't be sure, as it's dead) mutually
intelligible with Seneca; the Mingo are descended from Seneca that became
politically separated from the Seneca Nation two or more centuries ago.
If we want to deprecate it, we should replace it with see-mingo.

> know, is almost certainly mistagged anyway, and might not even be Min 

I agree.  It's garbage, and it's my fault.

-- 
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!"
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