Subject: Re: [Ietf-languages] Forms for subtag kmpre20c

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 14:13:36 -0700

Michael Everson wrote:
 
> Perhaps no one saw this comment I made.
 
The comment from November 6 implies, but does not state, that the
request will not be accepted as is. As the review period is over, if the
request was not acceptable it should have been explicitly rejected.
 
The next step is for Élie to prepare a revised registration form that
addresses Michael's and Peter Constable's objections.
 
--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, US | ewellic.org

---

From: Élie Roux <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2019 10:28:56 +0100

Dear all,

There might be something wrong with my registration to the list
because I didn't receive any comment from Michael... can someone
forward it to me?

Best,
--
Elie

---

From: Élie Roux <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2019 11:09:48 +0100

Sorry, found it in the archives:

> “Predates the 20th century” should not have a hyphen.

Just to be clear, the full comment has a line break, on one line it
would have been

"Khmer spelled according to a usage that predates 20th-century spelling reforms"

in that case the hyphen is correct, right?

> It is a little vague. No. It’s far too vague. Is this 1901-01-01? The first reform of the 20th century? The fourth? How many have there been?

In my non-native English speaker mind,

"predates 20th-century spelling reforms"

and

"predates any 20th-century spelling reform"

are equivalent, but I can change it to the second form if it's
clearer. Or maybe one of:

"predates all 20th-century spelling reforms"

"predates the first 20th-century spelling reform"

What is the best formulation?

> It should predate some particular reference, of some kind. But not “the 20th century”.

I don't believe I made any reference to the 20th century in general,
only to 20th-century spelling reforms. Sorry if I inadvertently did.

> I was travelling. What’s the need for this?

I have in my database a set of strings following a modern Khmer
spelling and a set of string following pre-reform spellings, and I
want to tag them so I can discriminate between the two, and treat them
differently in my search index.

> Did 20th-century reforms (there the hyphen is needed) all change uniformly or with some particular feature or features that make this division line make sense?

There are two main reforms, one starting in 1915 and finishing in
1967, and one in 1972. The second one was the official spelling until
2009, when the official spelling became the first one. The two kind of
spellings are very different (in short the first is based on
etymology, the second on phonetics). The spelling that predate these
reform (the one which I want to tag) is in turn quite distinctive and
doesn't follow any uniform rule.

The following describes the spelling reforms of the XXth c.:

Sasagawa, Hideo. The Establishment of the National Language in
Twentieth-Century Cambodia: Debates on Orthography and Coinage.
Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2015, pp. 43-72.

https://englishkyoto-seas.org/2015/04/vol-4-no-1-sasagawa/

See also

Antelme, Michel, 2007, Inventaire provisoire des caractères et divers
signes des écritures khmères pré-modernes et modernes employés pour la
notation du khmer, du siamois, des dialectes thaïs méridionaux, du
sanskrit et du pāli, in Bulletin de l’AEFEK (Association d’échanges et
de formation pour les études khmères) n° 12

https://www.academia.edu/12004341/Inventaire_provisoire_des_caract%C3%A8res_et_divers_signes_des_%C3%A9critures_khm%C3%A8res_pr%C3%A9-modernes_et_modernes_employ%C3%A9s_pour_la_notation_du_khmer_du_siamois_des_dialectes_tha%C3%AFs_m%C3%A9ridionaux_du_sanskrit_et_du_p%C4%81li?source=swp_share

It is a very complex and wide topic, I'm not sure how far I should go?
I'm ok not to be trusted, I can bring some Khmer experts in the
discussion if needed, or maybe there are Khmer experts you want to
consult with?

Also, here's an attempt at a reformulation of the 4. Intended meaning
of the subtag:

The tag is meant to be applied to Khmer strings spelled according to a
usage predating any of the 20th-centrury spelling reforms. This does
not correspond to a specific spelling style, nor to a specific
historical period or geographical area. It is instead intended to be
used to contrast with spelling following one of the spelling reforms
of the 20th century.

Would that be a clearer way to express the intent?

Best,
-- 
Elie

---

From: Élie Roux <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2019 11:17:15 +0100

Dear all,

Here's a re-submission addressing the comments (I hope).

Best,
--
Elie

===

LANGUAGE SUBTAG MODIFICATION
File-Date: 20xx-xx-xx
%%
Type: variant
Subtag: kmpre20c
Description: Pre-20th-century Khmer orthography
Added: 20xx-xx-xx
Prefix: km
Comments: Khmer spelled according to a usage that predates any
20th-century spelling reform

===

LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM
1. Name of requester: Élie Roux
2. E-mail address of requester: [email-masked]

3. Record Requested:

Type: variant
Subtag: kmpre20c
Description: Pre-20th-century Khmer orthography
Prefix: km
Comments: Khmer spelled according to a usage that predates any
20th-century spelling reform

4. Intended meaning of the subtag:

The tag is meant to be applied to Khmer strings spelled according to a
usage predating any of the 20th century spelling reforms. This does
not correspond to a specific spelling style corresponding to a
specific historical period or geographical area. It is instead
intended to be used to contrast with spelling following any of the
spelling reforms of the 20th century.

5. Reference to published description
    of the language (book or article):

See also:

6. Any other relevant information:

-- 
Elie

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2019 16:13:32 -0700

> Here's a re-submission addressing the comments (I hope).

I take this to be a new proposal, with a new review period ending Saturday, December 7, replacing the previous proposal which was tacitly rejected.

---

From: Élie Roux <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 14:56:11 +0100

> I am still not happy with it. How many centuries of orthography is this tag supposed to support?

Whatever is in Khmer script that's written in an old spelling. How
does it matter?

> What process will be able to do anything with it?

The database I'm needing subtags for is mainly bibliographical, it has
the title for each text in two flavors: the original (old) spelling as
appearing on the manuscript, and the equivalent in modern spelling
(Chuon Nath style).

> And again, what are the reforms? What are their dates?

The reform process is long and complex. I have put the reference to
this article describing it several times:

I'm not sure what else I can do... Should I copy paste the article
content into an email? Here's a short summary:

1915: establishment of the committee for editing a Khmer dictionary,
start of the debates between phonetic vs. etymological spellings
1926: establishment of a second committee led by Chuon Nath, using
mostly etymological spellings
1920s: printeries using mostly reformed orthography, as it was largely
under the control of those who favored reform (including the French
and reformist monks at the Institut Bouddhique), whereas manuscripts
were generally produced by traditional scribes and scholars and used
non-reformed orthography
1938: first edition of the Dictionnaire Cambodgien by Chuon Nath
1967: 5th and final edition of the Dictionnaire Cambodgien
1967-1974: Khmer becomes main language in education
1972: reform by Loch Phlaeng and the Khmerization movement (more based
on phonetic, less letters, less diphtongues), used officially from
1985 to 2009
2009: official use reverts to Chuon Nath's Dictionnaire Cambodgien

So I suppose you could arbitrarily pick 1967 and 1972 as dates for the
two reforms, but it's not clearcut at all.

> Our tags generally point TO a reference, and don’t specify themselves by relation to what they are NOT.

Well, I guess I'll keep this in a private subtag then. There's no
homogeneity in the pre-reform Khmer spelling. There is no tag that
could be defined to point TO it, because it doesn't exist as a
homogeneous concept that can be agreed upon.

> What sort of Khmer? Modern Khmer (whenever that dates from and to)? Or is this tag supposed to include Old and Middle Khmer?

Why does it matter? My data has whatever Khmer there is in the
Buddhist texts from the 16th to the 20th century (most of them copied
from previous sources, there is no way of knowing when a manuscript
started to circulate so some probably predate the 16th c.). For what
it's worth, I also have a lot of Pāli written using old Khmer
spelling.

> As to the reform or reforms, should there be a subtag that points to an authoritative source for one or more of these?

1967 edition of the "Dictionnaire Cambodgien" by Chuon Nath could be a
good reference for the first one

For the second reform, I have no source... It it talked about in the
article from 2015 and in
https://www.persee.fr/doc/befeo_0336-1519_1999_num_86_1_3414 but I
don't have an exact reference. I'll try to get one.

> This is underspecified and it’s not satisfactory so far.

And it will not be specified further because it cannot.

I suppose one way to unlock the situation would be to propose a subtag
for Chuon Nath's spelling style, I'll do that let's see how it goes.

Best,
-- 
Elie

---

From: Michael Everson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 17:02:43 +0000

I am still not happy with it. How many centuries of orthography is this tag supposed to support? What process will be able to do anything with it? And again, what are the reforms? What are their dates? The first of January 1901? Our tags generally point TO a reference, and don’t specify themselves by relation to what they are NOT. 

What sort of Khmer? Modern Khmer (whenever that dates from and to)? Or is this tag supposed to include Old and Middle Khmer? As to the reform or reforms, should there be a subtag that points to an authoritative source for one or more of these?

Michael

> On  24 Nov 2019, at 23:13, Doug Ewell <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Élie Roux wrote:
> 
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