> From: Nicolas Krebs [mailto:nicolas1.krebs3 at netcourrier.com] > Could you give me pointers for the previous discussion? Well, it's been under discussion for a few years now. But the focused, recent discussion has mainly been in the "John Cowan throws..." and "Remove extlang..." thread, both started on or after 11/29. You'll also want to see the short "summary of recommendations..." thread from 12/1. > Here what i think about this. > > ISO 639-3 contain/include language subtags for idioms which are not > languages, but dialects. Examples : > aln Gheg Albanian > als Tosk Albanian > zdj Ngazidja Comorian > wlc Mwali Comorian > > With "Extended Language Subtags" format, i can build sq-aln and > sq-als, and there is no more issue about those idioms being dialects > or language. These are in 639-3 on the basis that some linguists at some point had presented evidence that these should be considered distinct languages in Ethnologue. These and certain other cases out of ~7000 in Ethnologue may be controversial. But it is not our place here to judge the decisions of ISO 639 unless we think they create stability concerns we need to protect against in RFC 4646bis. Certainly there's some relationship between sq and aln; however, since three weeks ago the momentum has shifted toward abandoning the tentative plan to use extlangs. That means that aln, etc. will stand on their own as language subtags. If at some point in the future ISO 639 deprecates aln etc. on the grounds that they are not distinct languages, our choices would be to leave things as they are or to deprecate them as well. > Of course, LTRU wg is an IETF working group and do not work on poll, > so you are free to ignore my opinion. The decision process is one of consensus. Everyone on this list has opinions, all of which need to be considered. The decision process shouldn't be a matter of some subset of movers and shakers deciding they can ignore certain opinion. Ideally, it should be everyone deciding (on each issue), "Having considered all the factors, this is a plan we can live with." In practice, not everyone will always do that, but we need to try to address concerns and minimize levels of dissent. Peter _______________________________________________ Ltru mailing list Ltru at ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru
Note Well: Messages sent to this mailing list are the opinions of the senders and do not imply endorsement by the IETF.