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

[Mark Davis ☕️ <[e-mail]>]

Thanks for raising that as a concern (it's the first one that's made sense
to me). I don't know how much of an issue this would be in practice.
Unfortunately there isn't a formal mechanism with variants to add
descriptions of combinations, such as:

ku-northern : also known as  Kurmanji

Mark


On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 10:45 PM Peter Constable <[e-mail]> wrote:

> > If somebody uses such a subtag with a language where there is no agreed
> "western" variety,…
>
>
>
> That’s not a situation I’m concerned about. My concern would be the
> possibility that “Western X” is meaningful, but means different things to
> different people.
>
>
>
>
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* Sebastian Drude <[e-mail]>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 8, 2020 12:57 PM
> *To:* Peter Constable <[e-mail]>; Mark Davis ☕ <[e-mail]>;
> Michael Everson <[e-mail]>
> *Cc:* ietflang IETF Languages Discussion <[e-mail]>
> *Subject:* Re: [Ietf-languages] adjectival usage of variant subtags
>
>
>
> I am possibly not knowledgeable enough to have a real valid informed
> opinion (this evidently has a long history that I am not aware of), but I
> do not see any problem with having a sub-tag like "western" which has a
> different interpretation depending on the language subtag or other subtags
> in the same language tag.
>
> Sure, there are many languages which will not need that subtag, and others
> who will need different subtags which are only relevant to a small group of
> languages, and again others, probably the most frequent case, which are
> only relevant for one specific language (there is no Bavarian dialect in
> any other language than German).
>
> Still, I do not see why  tags which are "adaptingly" useful for many
> languages should be ruled out in principle.  If somebody uses such a subtag
> with a language where there is no agreed "western" variety, it will be
> cryptical, but so would the combination of English and Bavarian be.
>
> Sebastian
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Museu P.E. Goeldi, CCH, Linguistica ▪ Av. Perimetral, 1901
>
> Terra Firme, CEP: 66077-530 ▪ Belém do Pará – PA ▪ Brazil
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>
> On 08/12/2020 17:42, Peter Constable wrote:
>
> I think it should be ascertained that there aren’t cases in which “Western
> [language x]” is used by different communities to mean different language
> varieties. “Western” is relative—west of _*something*_---and different
> people might have different somethings in mind.
>
>
>
>
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> *From:* Ietf-languages <[e-mail]>
> <[e-mail]> *On Behalf Of *Mark Davis ??
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 6, 2020 3:07 PM
> *To:* Michael Everson <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
> *Cc:* ietflang IETF Languages Discussion <[e-mail]>
> <[e-mail]>
> *Subject:* Re: [Ietf-languages] adjectival usage of variant subtags
>
>
>
> That's a strawman; one doesn't need to enumerate them.
>
>
>
> One can have a simple policy for when it comes time to add a variant that
> could have general applicability, such as "vestland" (for 'Western
> Norwegian' = vestlandsk). In such a case, use the corresponding general
> word "western" instead, and add to the description the example 'no-western
> = Norwegian Vestlandsk'. Then there is no need to have a special variant
> for Western Slovak dialects, and innumerable other cases.
>
>
>
> Of course, where such a variant is not applicable (eg, there is no dialect
> of Chickasaw that it would make sense to call 'Western'), there is no
> purpose to using that variant. But that is no different than
> other productive uses of language subtags, say, ja-AQ.
>
>
>
> Mark
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 7:32 PM Michael Everson <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
> 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.
> >
>
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