[Ltru] Re: Is 639-3 bogus ?

Peter Constable wrote:

> it would help if you stated clearly at the outset what your
> concerns are.

Protecting the registry from bogus subtags, a variation of
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NFT>

> If you have a question about the usefulness of orq or any 
> other entry, you can contact Anthony Aristar or Debbie Anderson.

From my POV John already answered that, "orq" doesn't make
much sense in an *_Internet_* registry of language subtags.

We'll see if it's removed from the final version, and can
pull the emergency break before an IETF Last Call.  If all
fails we could limit the bulk update to type "L", and allow 
individual registrations of subtags with other types under
the review of the language subtag list, or a similar rule.

> By the time 639-3 is published, some of the spellings may
> be revised

Maybe use Unicode for the descriptions, the reasons why we
didn't limit the registry to Latn (or even Latin-1) should
also be okay for the source standards.  

The Bété vs. Béte question is obvious if you try to sort the
source table by its "inverted name" column.

> If you see two entries -- two distinct IDs -- then the
> language varieties denoted are deemed to be distinct 
> languages.

Yes, that's clear, three languages bet, bev, and btg.  Maybe
two others byf and btt, with three variants of "bete" in the
description.  I stumbled over it because my default codepage
is not windows-1252 (and of course not Latin-1).

> that doesn't mean that the entries are suspect.

As I said I can't judge it, and you asked why I attacked the
one subtag I recognized (= "orq").

> there's no particular reason for members of this WG to be 
> second guessing whether the content of ISO 639-3 is good
> enough for use in the LSR.

IBTD.  If it appears to list "anything" it would hurt the
deployment of 4646bis.  If we ask folks to download 640 KB
the content has to be as good as possible.  

We're operating under a "get it right at the first attempt"
doctrine, we can't change our minds later and remove "orq".

> "That's the job of a comment or description," you said. 
> It's still not clear to me if you had a comment to make wrt
> John's proposal or not.

The "interesting" types A, C, E, H, and S (what's H ?) could
be added to the description, e.g.

Subtag: xzh
Description: Zhang-Zhung (A)

Or preserved as a comment:

Subtag: xzh
Description: Zhang-Zhung
Comment: Ancient

There are only 617 entries with "interesting" types, anything
else is L (living).  The scopes could be handled in the same
way, all 56 M are L, with that we would get at most one marker
per description or comment for now:  A, C, E, H, S, or M.

If later one of the Ms gets type E adding (M,E) to a description
(or saying Macrolanguage, Extinct in a comment) is no problem.

Changing the 4646 syntax adding a completely new field however
is IMNSHO a very bad idea.  We more or less promised that that
won't happen.

Frank

_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
Ltru@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru