Reopening RFC 1766 - Language Tags

Hi,
this message is CCed to a lot of lists, and I'm asking people to spread
it even further; copy it to any list you think should be invited to
participate.
BUT: PLEASE keep replies to me and the MAILEXT mailing list!

The language tags RFC, RFC 1766, is a Proposed Standard, and is now
nine months old.
It has been very actively referenced in other Internet standards discussions,
but I don't know of any usage of it that can really be called
"implementations".

I also have had two change requests on the document:
- To add a syntax for describing matching rules, so that, for instance,
  one could ask for language "en" and have the tag "en-cockney" match
- To add syntax for one or more larger language repertoires. In particular
  the Summer Institute of Linguistics' Ethnologue 3-character codes has
  been suggested.

I would therefore ask community input on the following points:

- Should the document be progressed to Draft Standard? This requires no
  additional functionality, and at least some implementation experience
- Should the document be revised, and recycled as Proposed?

If the second option is chosen, I would ask further:

- Are there changes beyond the two I mentioned needed?
- Do we want three-letter codes? If so, how?
- Do we want matching rules? If so, how?

Please reply to me or to the mailext list (reply-to of this message is
set to mailext).
To subscribe to mailext, I believe the correct invocation is a message
to listproc@list.cren.net with "subscribe mailext" in the body.

              Harald T. Alvestrand

Received on Sunday, 12 November 1995 23:37:52 UTC