> From: ietf-languages-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-languages- > bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bruce Lilly > > What is silly is saying that every language tag has to have a date/time > > attribute associated with it so that computer software managing that > text > > knows the language of that text. > > In the specific cases of the core Internet protocols that > I have mentioned, there *is* a date/time attribute in the > form of an RFC [2]822 Date field. If we're talking about > some file stored on some machine, every OS that I know of > has a date/time stamp associated with that file. If you > have something else in mind, a concrete description and/ > or example might help. That is not sufficient for many other implementations of RFC 3066. For instance, an XML document may well be stored in a file system that has date/time stamps associated with the file; it might also be stored in a content manangement system that does not report creation dates when returning content. And elements from within that XML document may be returned as the result of an X-Path query or a call into a DOM API, and those surely cannot be assumed to have creation date/time stamps, though one certain must assume that they can have RFC 3066 tags as xml:lang attributes. > I'm not "eager to abolish" "uniqueness". There never was > any guarantee that codes would never change. Both RFCs > 1766 and 3066 specifically mention changes as a fact of > life. Some of us consider that fact and the instability particularly of ISO 3166 to be a serious problem. That (not accessibility) was one of the key reasons for this revision. > > > SO where are the French definitions? > > > > Ask a person who is bilingual in English and French to provide one. > > That would lack definitiveness which characterizes the > ISO lists. You started out this thread by talking about display names, not definitions; hence Mark's suggestion. Now you have switched to talking about definitions. The draft clearly indicates where one finds the definitions: " o All 2-character language subtags were defined in the IANA registry according to the assignments found in the standard ISO 639..." I.e. the definition is provided in the registry on the basis of what is defined in ISO 639; hence if what is indicated in the registry is for any reason insufficient for your purposes, you consult the definitive source, the ISO standard. Peter Constable Microsoft Corporation _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf