Re: New Locale Proposal

From: Marion Gunn (mgunn@egt.ie)
Date: Mon Sep 18 2000 - 16:02:02 EDT


Absolutely true, John, and said far more succinctly than I did.

The most significant aspect of this is that the work of registering codes should
be procesed much faster in future, becuause, although for now there may still
exist two separate Maintenance Agencies to process requests, aplicants applying
to AT InfoTerm for 639-1 codes have, in future, as you say below, simultaneously
to satisfy 639-2 US LOC requirements.
mg

Arsa John Cowan:

> Marion Gunn wrote:
> >
> > The opposite it true, Doug. ISO 639 will ONLY issue new 639-1
> > (two-letter) codes for languages that already have a 639-2 (three-letter)
> > code.
>
> Almost, but not quite. If that were true, 639-2 tags could become effectively
> obsolete. The true rules AFAIU are:
>
> 1) A language with a 639-1 tag has and will always have a 639-2 tag as well.
> E.g. English has tags "eng" and "en".
>
> 2) A language which currently has a 639-2 tag but not a 639-1 tag will not
> get a new 639-1 tag in future. E.g. Arapaho has tag "arp" but will never
> have a 639-1 tag.
>
> 3) Therefore, the only future 639-1 tags are those assigned to new (i.e.
> not in 639-2) languages, simultaneously with a 639-2 tag. E.g. Lojban,
> a currently untagged language, might get the tags "loj" and "lj".
> (When Hell freezes over.)
>
> --
> There is / one art || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com
> to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein

--
Marion Gunn
Everson Gunn Teoranta
<http://www.egt.ie>



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