Subject: [Ietf-languages] Philly (was: Re: Language Subtag Registration)

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 16:17:07 -0700

Mark Davis wrote:

> Now, I doubt that any significant number of people would use these
> codes, much as I doubt that any significant number of people would use
> en-philly.

This highlights the question that I don't think has been answered about
'philly'.

In BCP 47 we have what's known as a "taggable distinction," meaning a
distinction between language varieties that a content producer or
consumer would consider worthwhile to capture in a language tag.

English vs. French is obviously a distinction that usually needs to be
captured, which is why language tags exist in the first place. In many
cases, "American English" and "British English" are also worth
distinguishing, so we have region subtags. And so on.

Is there a real-world situation in which someone would need to tag
content as Philadelphia English, or search for content thus tagged, so
as to distinguish it from content in non-Philadelphia English?

Remember that language tags aren't really for identifying languages and
varieties as such, but for identifying the language (including
varieties) of actual content, so that users can find that content and so
that appropriate resources, like spell-checkers, can be applied to that
content.

Even if the distinguishing features of Philadelphia English are
interesting in their own right -- and no, it doesn't matter whether some
of them are in evidence outside of Philadelphia proper -- they don't
constitute a "taggable difference" unless there is actually a need to
tag content differently. I'd be interested in hearing an argument that
such a need exists.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, US | ewellic.org