Subject: [Ltru] Using the "eur" tag

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:47:13 -0500

Somewhat in advance of RFC 4646bis, I have tagged my post at
http://recycledknowledge.blogspot.com/2005/05/eigensprach.html as
Europanto using the "eur" tag.

As I said: the language is a joke, the code element is not.

-- 
We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do,        John Cowan <[email-masked]>
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must; 
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.  --Bokonon

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From: "Kent Karlsson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:30:05 +0100

> As I said: the language is a joke, the code element is not.

It still makes the registration of a code element for this joke
in the 639-3 registry a mistake. I hope that code element will
be removed from there before we incorporate 639-3 code elements
into the IETF language subtag registry.

	/kent k

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From: "Jukka K. Korpela" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:45:55 +0200

Kent Karlsson wrote:

> in the 639-3 registry a mistake.

I tend to agree, on the grounds that "Europanto" is not a language under 
any normal meaning for "language". It is just an idea rather than 
consistent system in the sense that English, Swahili, or Esperanto is 
consistent. There are languages that are now extinct, but can we call 
something a language when it was never actually used for human 
communication in any normal sense?

A purely imaginary language, such as those created by Tolkien, is a 
borderline case. It could exist as a mere joke. But Europanto doesn't. 
It's just a worn-out joke at the level of a vague idea of mixing 
different languages arbitrarily.

Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

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From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:48:44 -0800

> From: Kent Karlsson [mailto:[email-masked]]

> into the IETF language subtag registry.

Code elements do not get *removed* from 639-3; they may become deprecated (the RA says "retired"), but they remain in the code table with a stable semantic.

Of course, LTRU could consider not including anything in the initial populating of the registry that is already deprecated in 639-3.

Peter

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From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:51:18 -0800

> From: Jukka K. Korpela [mailto:[email-masked]]

> any normal meaning for "language".

Even if it is considered a mistake, we must be careful about what happens in a coding system: a semantic *has* been encoded in 639-3, and that semantic/code element pair is stable and will not disappear.

Peter

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:22:38 -0500

> communication in any normal sense?

What do you mean, not used?  I addressed my blog post to the readers of
my blog, and the Europanto web site is addressed to all comers.  It may
not be used conversationally yet, but there definitely exists a body of
written works.

> borderline case. It could exist as a mere joke. 

Quenya and Sindarin are far more than jokes: they are targets for
translation and the creation of original works of literature.  There exist
third-party grammars and dictionaries for both of them.

> different languages arbitrarily.

Macaronic composition, which does exactly that, has a long and
distinguished tradition going back to the Middle Ages.  Europanto
is just the latest outcrop of this perennial idea.
You can call it worn-out if you want, but the decisions of this
list ought not to depend on what sense of humor people have.

This isn't Europanto, but it's relevant:

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN                   MALUM OPUS

By the side of a murmuring stream       Prope ripam fluvii solus
an elderly gentleman sat.               A senex silently sat;
On the top of his head was a wig,       Super capitum ecce his wig,
and a-top of his wig was his hat.       Et wig super, ecce his hat.

The wind it blew high and blew strong,  Blew Zephyrus alte, acerbus,
as the elderly gentleman sat;           Dum elderly gentleman sat;
And bore from his head in a trice,      Et a capite took up quite torve
and plunged in the river his hat.       Et in rivum projecit his hat.

The gentleman then took his cane        Tunc soft maledixit the old man,
which lay by his side as he sat;        Tunc stooped from the bank where he sat
And he dropped in the river his wig,    Et cum scipio poked in the water,
in attempting to get out his hat.       Conatus servare his hat.

His breast it grew cold with despair,   Blew Zephyrus alte, acerbus,
and full in his eye madness sat;        The moment it saw him at that;
So he flung in the river his cane       Et whisked his novum scratch wig
to swim with his wig, and his hat.      In flumen, along with his hat.

Cool reflection at last came across     Ab imo pectore damnavit
while this elderly gentleman sat;       In coeruleus eye dolor sat;
So he thought he would follow the stream Tunc despairingly threw in his cane
and look for his cane, wig, and hat.    Nare cum his wig and his hat.

His head being thicker than common,     Contra bonos mores, don't swear
o'er-balanced the rest of his fat;      It 'est wicked you know (verbum sat),
And in plumped this son of a woman      Si this tale habet no other moral
to follow his wig, cane, and hat.       Mehercle! You're gratus to that!

    --George Canning                        --James Appleton Morgan

-- 
John Cowan <[email-masked]>             http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
It's like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver
spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, "I want to be
rich, too, so I'm going to start walking with a cane and I'm going to
act crotchety and I'm going to get liver disease. --Wil Shipley

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From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:47:37 -0800

Hi -

As a technical contributor...

> From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
> To: "Jukka K. Korpela" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 10:51 AM
> Subject: RE: [Ltru] RE: Using the "eur" tag
...
> Even if it is considered a mistake, we must be careful about what
> happens in a coding system: a semantic *has* been encoded in 639-3,
> and that semantic/code element pair is stable and will not disappear.
...

I strongly agree.  We chartered to specify the operation of a registry
which happens to use code elements specified elsewhere.  Second-
guessing other stamdards beyond what is necessary to ensure that
the registry functions as such seems unwise.

In the particular case of "eur", no one has described how including it
would impair the operation of the registry, nor how it would cause
problems for language tagging in general.  On the other hand,
excluding it would open a dreadful can of worms with respect to the
potential for "cherry picking".   It really doesn't matter whether the
language was specified as a joke.  The code has been assigned
and it *does* have a meaning.

Now let's get back to more interesting problems like Erzgebirgisch
where there seem to be some question about what language that
variety is a variety *of*, and whether there is any sensible guidance
we could offer for the handling of such requests.

Randy