[Spellyans] Language tags for Cornish orthographies

[Michael Everson]

On 29 Sep 2008, at 13:26, <ajtrim at msn.com> <ajtrim at msn.com> wrote:

> What is the impact of this? What do we gain by having a tag and  
> subtag? What does it do? Who needs to agree to it? How would people  
> know?
> It is difficult to comment on this until we understand the  
> consequences.

It means you can tag text not only as Cornish, but as one or another  
orthography of Cornish. You can do this now

> I assume that <kw> is short for "kernuak" in it's various spellings.

No; "kw" is the ISO 639-1 two-letter code for Cornish. "cor" is the  
ISO 639-2 three-letter code for Cornish,

> If so, the subtags should also be in Cornish (and in their own  
> orthography.)

Erm, no, that's not how it works. These are arbitrary strings intended  
to have some mnemonic value.

> That would rule out the proposed subtags that start with "cor" and  
> also exclude those containing "SWF".

Having thought about it, I believe the appropriate subtags are:

coruc UC
corur UCR
corkk KK
corks KS
corsm SWF/M
corst SWF/T

> Should each language group propose their own tag?

No. This isn't that kind of endeavour. This isn't about personal  
identity or preference; it's just technical. Neutrality and simplicity  
is probably a good idea. (Note that I did not propose "Kennywek" for KK.

> Should it be coordinated by a central authority?

What, the application process? There is no need for that. Anyone with  
a need to tag text can apply for a subtag. (I have a need to tag text.)

> There will probably be further orthogaphies proposed at various  
> future times. Their "owners" may want to have their own subtag too!

The internet protocol is big enough to handle future expansion.

> Is KD still current or has it faded away?

I believe it has faded away. No one, so far as I know, is planning to  
use it as a practical orthography.

> Do we need another subtag to indicate original traditional spelling  
> from the historical texts? What about Lhuyd's spelling?

There would not be a convenient way of indicating traditional  
spelling. This really is for Revived Cornish; tagged text might be  
able to make use of spell-checkers, or to identify text for automatic  
transduction from one orthography to another.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com