Re: [Ietf-languages] Suggestion to update Urdu Script Designation in the subtag registry

[Doug Ewell <[e-mail]>]

Richard Wordingham wrote:

>> But aside from
>> characterizing font resources, it’s not clear to me where is it would
>> be beneficial to use ‘Aran’, either in a language tag or some other
>> context.
>
> That rather raises the question of why Aran is registered in BCP 47!
>
> However, I think Aran makes sense in catalogues, though my reasoning
> is based on the apparently analogous situation of Latn, Latf and Latg,
> but where Latn is not used if Latf or Latg were appropriate. [...]

The subtag 'Aran' is included in the Registry because the code element [Aran] is in ISO 15924, and we have to be extremely careful with the notion of cherry-picking code elements out of a core standard and leaving others behind. We don't know all the reasons why someone would want to use BCP 47, except that we all know (I hope) that web pages aren't the only use case. A tag or subtag that might not make any sense for one context might be very appropriate for another.

Initially, Daniel Billings simply asked for the Suppress-Script for 'ur' to be changed from 'Arab' to 'Aran', without stating the presumed benefit. Subsequent posts showed that he has document-processing applications which select a font based on the script subtag of the content, or based on the Suppress-Script of the language if no explicit script subtag is provided (I hope I have that right).

Well, specifying 'Aran' instead of assuming 'Arab' might make a lot of sense in that case, for printing documents in Urdu where the app doesn't already know what font to pick for Urdu. It might also be appropriate for cataloguing library holdings, as Richard said. It would make no sense at all for tagging plain text, because in plain text there is no difference between calligraphic styles. All of these are potential applications for BCP 47.

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Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, US | ewellic.org