Re: [Ietf-languages] adjectival usage of variant subtags

[Michael Everson <[e-mail]>]

This is why we have preferred specific subtags referring to specific entities, rather than 

northern, southern. eastern, western, northeastern, southeastern, northwestern, southwestern, central, peripheral, secret, male, female, hill, valley, plains, mountain, coastal, insular, archaic, old, middle, catholic, protestant… all of this is too vague and there would be scores of additional geographical or social generic tags. It is not wise to try to enumerate these.

Michael

> On 30 Nov 2020, at 00:16, Mark Davis ☕️ <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Well, if the registry had {eastern, western, northern, southern, central} variants, then someone could have sv-northern. The meaning would be the customary meaning of 'northern' — a variety spoken in the northern part of the area of the Earth in which that language is typically spoken. It is quite common to distinguish varieties based on general geographical location: look at Kurdish.
> 
> For many languages that 'adjective' would not be particularly useful, and like any subtag, should be avoided where it does not mark a useful distinction. For example, for English it would not be particularly useful. 
>