On the http://www.unicode.org/ website is a link entitled
Public Issues for Review which link leads to the http://www.unicode.org/review/ web page. The first such issue upon which comments are invited is the following proposal. Deprecate the Plane 14 Language Tags It seems to me that deprecating these language tags might be a bad thing as the language tags could well have potential use in plain text files on the DVB-MHP (Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) platform in order to signal to a Java program accessing a text file the language in which any particular text is written. At the present time I have no plans to use the Unicode language tags myself, yet it does seem to me a pity that just as DVB-MHP, which uses Unicode, is starting to be run in more than one country that an existing method of encoding information about languages is possibly to be formally deprecated. Now, there may be good reasons for the deprecation, yet none are stated on that web page. I feel that I would like to mention the matter of the possibility of using language tags upon the DVB-MHP platform so that that can be taken into account by the Unicode Technical Committee when it discusses the matter. Certainly I am hoping to send in an informed comment upon the matter in the manner mentioned on the web page using the online contact form. However, before doing so, I am wondering if perhaps the reasons for suggesting the deprecation of plane 14 language tags could please be discussed in this mailing list. DVB-MHP broadcasts have recently begun in Germany, there is information on the http://www.mhp-forum.de website. The text information is in German, though there are lots of pictures and for many of them clicking upon them enlarges them. I found the language translation facility at http://www.google.com very useful for translating the text. Germany follows Finland in introducing regular DVB-MHP broadcasts. Information on the DVB-MHP system is available at the http://www.mhp.org website, in English. There is also the discussion forum at the http://forum.mhp.org website. William Overington 26 October 2002
