CLDR data (Re: Comments on the IDNA2008 document)

Lang Gérard gerard.lang at insee.fr
Wed Jan 14 15:33:47 CET 2009


Dear All,

Concerning the last message from John Klensin, let me add some more informations.
1-During ICANN's meeting in Paris in june 2008, I had a side meeting with UNESCO and WIPO that were willing to participate to the IDN initiative and to support the lists of  administrative languages issued by UNGEGN and ISO 3166-1.
Moreover, as 2008 was declared as "year of languages", UNESCO published on its Internet site a list  (that is still active) of "official languages", completed by a list of "Leadingly Languages in daily use" for countries, classed by continent. 
The list of "official languages" is not identical with the list of "administrative languages" given by part 3 of the UNGEGN's Manual and by ISO 3166-1, by is nevertheless very close to them. And the list of complementary languages given by UNESCO is in the same spirit that the extended list of most currently used languages given inside part 2 of the UNGEGN manual.
2-Concerning the protection of minority languages,  the best international available instrument is the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible cultural heritage, signed at UNESCO, in Paris, on 17th october 2003, and in force from 20th april 2006.
This convention has now 105 Member States (but not GB, nor USA).
And we are trying with UNGEGN to obtain that "Toponymy (Geographical names, in natives languages and script" can be taken care of on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, that is defined in article 16 of this convention.

Bien cordialement.
Gérard LANG

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Lang Gérard 
Envoyé : mardi 13 janvier 2009 11:43
À : 'Jaap Akkerhuis'; JFC Morfin; Lang Gérard
Cc : John C Klensin; idna-update at alvestrand.no
Objet : RE: CLDR data (Re: Comments on the IDNA2008 document) 

Dear All, 

It is clear, as Jaap writes, that columns 9 and 10 (and 11) of ISO 3166-1(2006) are informative as explicitely stated by clause 6.1.
It is nevertheless also the case that these columns are practically aligned with the list given by Part Three of the "Technical reference manual for the standardization of geographical names" issued from the United Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN, that works under the United Nations Division of Statistics) and published in 2007 by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
So, if these two quasi-equivalent references  cannot be presented as "juridically official documents" (and maybe such a document will never exist !), they certainly make authority on this question of administrative languages,  as is notably proven by the section 3.1 Language and Scripts Criteria (page 7) of ICANN's "Draft Implementation Plan for IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process (26 november 2008)." 

Bonne année à tous, et cordialement.
Gérard LANG 

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Jaap Akkerhuis [mailto:jaap at NLnetLabs.nl] Envoyé : mardi 13 janvier 2009 10:56 À : JFC Morfin Cc : John C Klensin; Lang Gérard; idna-update at alvestrand.no Objet : Re: CLDR data (Re: Comments on the IDNA2008 document) 


    as you know the official reference is ISO 3106 which gives the 
    languages and script for each country that ccTLD should support to 
    comply at minima with WTP TBT rules. Then, once IDNA has stabilised, 
    Linguasphere 640 should permit to complete the ccTag system and 
    eventually deploy the  Multilinc initiative.

No, it isn't.

The table of languages in 3166-1:2006 is additional and clearly indicated as "informative" in section 6.1 of 3166 for a description of the fields in the column (clearly marked as "Additional Information"
in the table itself).

	jaap


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