[mpeg-OTspec] RE: Updates to script and language tags

[John Hudson]

I'm not enthusiastic about the use of -2 in language system tags to 
differentiate new names based on ISO-639 from otherwise identical older, 
ad hoc language system tags. In script tags, the number -2 identifies a 
kind of versioning, e.g. 'dev2' and 'deva' are both implementations of 
the Devanagari script. I think using the same indicator for a different 
purpose in language system tags is potentially confusing, and also 
closes a door on the possibility of versioning language system tags in a 
way systematically equivalent to that for script tags, should that ever 
be regrettably necessary.

I'd like to suggest a different convention for differentiating otherwise 
identical language system tags, for instancing appending -Z to ISO-639 
derived names. So 'CHKZ' instead of 'CHK2'.


By the way, as someone responsible for a large number of the ad hoc 
language system tags, please accept my apologies for the lack of any 
consistent reference to other standards. At the time (late '90s), the 
fact that OTL language system tags identified typographic conventions 
that didn't necessarily map to textual language tagging seemed to make 
it unnecessary and perhaps even undesirable to coordinate with ISO 
language tags. I'm now wishing that I'd come up with a systematic 
relationship, even if it were systematically distinct; for instance, it 
might have been possible to signal varying conventions related to the 
same language in a systematic manner.

JH



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