Re: [Ltru] Proposed resolution for Issue 13 (language tags)

[Julian Reschke <julian.reschke at gmx.de>]

Phillips, Addison wrote:
> Hello Julian,
>
> I'm glad to see this note. My thoughts follow:
>
> > 1) The exact wording of the "summary",
>
> I think your wording is generally good. There are a couple of minor points to make.
>
> > HTTP uses language tags within the Accept-Language and Content-Language fields.
>
> Not quite. It uses language tags in Content-Language. Accept-Language uses language *ranges*, which are currently defined by RFC 4647, although I would tend not to change this text here to note that fact. Section 5.4 can cover that.
>
> > 2) whether we're referring the right ABNF production (does it need
> > to be "obs-language-tag" instead, or both), and
>
> I don't think it should be both. That would be confusing and lead to interoperability issues. 
>
> I think that, ideally, you would use the new production rather than obs-language-tag. While obs-language-tag is more permissive, language tags that match it (but not language-tag) have never been valid. And many of the most common invalid values happen to match both productions.
>
> > 3) the examples
>
> There is nothing wrong with the set of examples you have, although "x-pig-latin" is suspect :-) and the list is somewhat eclectic. The list in RFC 2616 was:
>
>   en, en-US, en-cockney, i-cherokee, x-pig-latin
>
> This list had the advantage of being somewhat obvious to English speakers without additional annotation. (Note that the Cherokee tag was never actually valid!!) Perhaps some values from 4646bis Appendix B would be suitable. I suggest a carefully constructed list, such as:
>
> ====
>    Example tags include:
>
>    en (English)
>    en-US (English, United States)
>    en-US-x-pig-latin (English, United States, private use subtags)
>    hy-Latn-IT-arevela (Armenian, Latin script, Italy, eastern variant)
>    es-419 (Spanish, Latin America)
> ====
> ...

OK, I have updated the text as proposed (with 
<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/changeset/613>), but will 
leave the issue (<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/13>) 
open for more review, and potentially fine-tuning the examples.

BR, Julian