[Ltru] Re: extlang

["Doug Ewell" <[e-mail]>]

GerardM <gerard dot meijssen at gmail dot com> wrote:

> My question is about Min Nan, according to what is proposed zh-nan. 
> This language has been written in both the Chinese script and the 
> Latin script for several centuries. According to my information it was 
> already written in the Latin script in the 16th century in the 
> Philippines. The question, zh implies one of the Chinese scripts. 
> Should the code therefore be zh-nan-Latn and, should there not be a 
> code for the particular orthography as well and can a code for the 
> orthography replace the Latn indicator.
>
> NB this is a practical question as the Wikipedia in Min-Nan is written 
> in the Latin script.

My opinion, and mine alone, is that you should be able to use "zh-nan" 
and not worry about the script subtag.  Not every tagging scenario 
requires explicit specification, or even implication, of the script, 
just as not every tagging scenario requires identification of the 
region.

Specifying the script is important when it is necessary to contrast it 
with other scripts.  For example, you might write "zh-nan-Latn" to 
distinguish it from "zh-nan-Hani" if it were necessary to distinguish 
between the two.  The fact that the Min-Nan Wikipedia text is written 
does not necessarily mean this is necessary.

This is one of the things I dislike about Suppress-Script: it tends to 
imply that the script subtag is always important, and is simply being 
omitted in this tag for brevity or compatibility.

If we get rid of extended language subtags, of course, then this is a 
moot point: "nan" can be given a Suppress-Script of "Latn", or can be 
left alone, and neither choice would imply anything about Han.

I see no reason why the Min-Nan *orthography* needs its own subtag, 
unless (again) it needs to be distinguished from Min-Nan written in some 
other Latin orthography.  Thousands of languages use the Latin script 
with their own orthography.  There's nothing unique about Min-Nan in 
this regard.

--
Doug Ewell · Fullerton, California, USA · RFC 4645 · UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages 



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