[tex-hyphen] Customizing patterns

[Karl Berry]

Hi Javier,

    the full set of usual patters, and a "local" set which can
    be configured locally 

Anything about "configured locally" is not an easy thing to arrange.
Either they're in the list or not.  For anything but LuaTeX, formats
have to be rebuilt.  (I'd love to change that, but don't hold your
breath.)

Maybe the answer is, this advanced functionality is only available in
LuaTeX.
    
    and selected with, say, an option in babel or similar. 

Anything requiring changes to babel proper is also dubious, at best.
But if it's just a new (uniquely named) ldf file that can be installed
outside babel, that'd work.

    There will be about 5 options and therefore considering all
    combinations as separate "languages" is impossible.

Agreed :).

    But a single local file, so that the settings
    are writen to the log file (for reference), could be feasible.

I'm afraid I don't understand.  A single local file that does what?

Best,
Karl