[tex-hyphen] New language classiclatin – question about the language code

[Jonathan Kew]

On 4/6/14 14:10, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> No, I didn't say it wasn't acceptable. I just mentioned that once
> la-classic is registered, el-classic may not be registered later for
> example.

I'm not sure this is correct. You wouldn't register "la-classic" as 
such; you'd register "classic" as a variant subtag. And as far as I 
understand (see http://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47#section-3.5), you could 
register the variant "classic" for use with multiple prefixes, so that 
both "la-classic" and "el-classic" would be legitimate.

The important point would be to make it clear in the initial 
registration that the "classic" variant subtag is intended to mark 
"classical" orthography for any language that has a classical vs modern 
distinction, and NOT to describe it as a tag specifically for "classical 
Latin".

The "prefix" field in the registry could either be omitted altogether, 
leaving the variant free to be used with any language (like "fonipa"), 
or multiple prefixes could be listed: at least "la" and "el", but there 
are no doubt other reasonable candidates as well (classical Sanskrit, 
Tamil, ...). Compare, for example, the registry entry for "baku1926".

Note that it is legal to add further prefixes in subsequent requests, so 
it is not necessary to be exhaustive in the initial registration. But if 
including a prefix at all, it is, I think, important to make it clear in 
the description, and by including several example prefixes, that the 
usage of this variant subtag is NOT intended to be limited to a specific 
language.

JK