Re: Questions re ISO-639-1,2,3

From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Thu Jul 14 2005 - 09:34:15 CDT

  • Next message: Peter Constable: "RE: Questions re ISO-639-1,2,3"

    Donald Z. Osborn <dzo at bisharat dot net> wrote:

    > I was surprised to find that some 2-letter ISO-639-1 language codes I
    thought
    > were official are not in the list of codes. Specifically:
    >
    > bm - Bambara
    > ff - Fula (Fulfulde/Pulaar)
    > ig - Igbo

    All of these are valid ISO 639-1 code elements.

    The official code lists are at
    http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langhome.html. Try to go to the
    source if at all possible. There are many unofficial lists floating
    around on the Internet, but many are out of date or otherwise incorrect.

    > The first two I recall communicating with Indrek Hein about in 2000,
    > and assumed they were already adopted. The one for Igbo I found on in
    > a Wikipedia article.
    >
    > The next questions are what their status is if any (other than
    > imaginary, I guess), and whether it is worth putting those and
    > possibly others forth for approval. Or is ISO-639-1 now closed?

    ISO 639-1 is not completely closed, but only a language newly added to
    ISO 639-2 can receive an ISO 639-1 code. In other words, no language
    that currently has a 3-letter code but no 2-letter code will get one,
    and no newly added language will get a 2-letter code unless it also gets
    a 3-letter code.

    > I'm aware of course of ISO-639-2 (3-letter codes) and ISO/DIS-639-3.
    > Am I correct in assuming that ISO-639-2 is intended to replace
    > ISO-639-1? Also, what is the intended relationship between ISO-639-2
    > and ISO/DIS-639-3 (once the latter is adopted)?

    Each of these parts has a different scope. In particular, with the
    widespread use of ISO 639-1 (as ccTLDs, for example) there is no chance
    that ISO 639-2 will ever "replace" it. The parts complement each other.

    --
    Doug Ewell
    Fullerton, California
    http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
    


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