[OpenType] Language system tag for Chinantec languages?

[Peter Constable]

Are you wedded to CHN? In ISO 639, 'chn' is used for Chinook Jargon. I'd rather avoid that. As I look at the mixed-blessing of ISO 639-5, I see it is lacking a collection ID for Chinantec languages, while there are collections for other families of similar significance. So, it doesn't provide us a candidate.

How about "CCHN" (initial "c" since this is a language collection)?


Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: John Hudson [mailto:john at tiro.ca] 
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2017 5:43 PM
Cc: Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft.com>; mpeg-OTspec at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [OpenType] Language system tag for Chinantec languages?

Revisiting this inconclusive discussion from last November.

I've now reached the moment where I actually have to start programming the GSUB for these fonts, and am still unsure what approach to take for the Chinantec-specific variants. My preference, given the tools I'm using and the nature of the flexible mapping of OTL language-system tags to language codes, is to register a single 'CHN ' tag for Chinantec languages, which still leaves the door open for additional, more specific tags to be added later if a need arises. There's just two modifier characters for which I need to provide variants, and I really don't imagine that any Chinantec language using these characters will require further variation.

So, can we register

     Chinantec    CHN

I suggest that, as with Athapaskan 'ATH ' we list as corresponding ISO
639 IDs all those for Chinantec languages. However, I think the preamble to the OTL language system tag registry might clarify the status of the correspondence documentation: my guess is that it is informative only.

JH


-- 

John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks Ltd    www.tiro.com
Salish Sea, BC        tiro at tiro.com

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