Re: Macrolanguage (was: Forms for Montenegrin)
Michael Everson <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.ietf.languages |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On 22 Dec 2017, at 20:27, Doug Ewell <[email protected]> wrote: > I was asked, By me. > offline, why the proposed form to add Montenegrin doesn’t include the field "Macrolanguage: sh" when the record for Serbian (and Bosnian and Croatian) does. > > Montenegrin is the same as Serbian, right? Even more so than Bosnian or Croatian? So if Serbian has Serbo-Croatian as its macrolanguage, why wouldn't we add that to Montenegrin as well? > > "Macrolanguage" is completely an ISO 639-3 concept. The term is odd, but it’s a familiar concept in linguistic classification. > The RA invented the classification, and only they can decide which languages are macrolanguages and which individual languages are encompassed by them. We don't make those decisions. The Language Subtag Registry includes the ISO 639-3 macrolanguage structure to help users choose language subtags, but we do not determine the macrolanguage or encompassed-language classifications. You imply that Montenegrin’s would either have no macrolanguage (but it is not a linguistic isolate) or that its macrolanguage would be anything other than Serbo-Croatian. But neither of those would be correct. > Not only is this the law (RFC 5646, Section 3.1.10), it's also a good idea. If we were able to apply our judgment to this case, we would open the door to endless debates about other macro/encompassed language > decisions, and we would essentially be wrestling this responsibility away from 639-3/RA. I for one wouldn't want to get embroiled in this, especially considering how many people don't understand what a > macrolanguage really is. In this case, I disagree. There is no implication that we would be obliged to act in such a way for any other language. > As a side note, Montenegrin hasn't been added yet to 639-3, with its annual cycle, but only to 639-2. It's likely that when 639-3 adds it, they will make it an encompassed language of Serbo-Croatian, but that is their decision and we can't jump the gun on it. Last year they published in February. In this case I think I would like to disapprove your current change request until the the 639-3 changes are published. There’s no point in making IANA make any changes twice for this subtag. Michael Everson _______________________________________________ Ietf-languages mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages