[Ltru] Additional descriptions not found in ISO

["Doug Ewell" <dewell at adelphia.net>]

A list member whose judgment I trust wrote this to me off-list, and I
thought it was appropriate to bring it onto the list:

> Would it be appropriate to add "Bangla" as a description
> under the "Bengali" entry?
>
> I see these as two separate entries on a lot of the lists I've
> reviewed.

The initial registry includes Description fields taken directly from the
relevant ISO and UN standards.  I tried to be very diligent about
copying them exactly, to the point of using the ISO 3166 country names
"Korea, Democratic People's Republic of" and "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,"
which I would never use in conversation, and the ISO 639 language name
"Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low" (split into multiple
Description fields), which I consider major overkill.  The only
conscious changes I made were to add a space between the period and the
digit in constructions like "English, Old (ca.450-1100)".

ISO 639 lists "Bengali" as the only English name for the code element
"bn".  However, it is certainly true that the name "Bangla" is often
used as well, particularly by native Bengali speakers.  There are
probably other examples as well.

My understanding is that:

1.  The Description field is not normative, and user agents are free to
substitute any name that does not materially change the meaning of the
subtag.  It's OK for a user interface to replace "Bengali" with
"Bangla," but not with "Italian."

2.  Additional Description fields can always be proposed for
registration after the RFC goes live, subject to the restriction about
not changing the meaning.

3.  The initial registry is meant as a starting point, where 869 subtags
and their descriptions are registered with the blanket justification
that they appear in the core standards.  Adding a single alternative
description that is not in the standards would open the door for other
such requests, which is what the individual-registration process is
supposed to be for.  It would probably be best to hold off on such
requests until the RFC goes live, and use the procedure in Section 3.4
to request them at that time.

Is this more or less the hum of the group, or do we need a ticket?

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/



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