American Indian/Alaska Native languages

Pavla &OR Francis Frazier pfrazier9@earthlink.net
Tue, 7 May 2002 22:33:32 -0600


Hello again,
Thank you once again for your diligent help.  I must say again, it has
been very interesting & fun getting into this aspect of standards,
your "language world."  I still need to confer with some HL7 people,
but wanted to make sure I have this straight:

1) Peter had written, "Or do we want to try to permit Pavla to pursue
his requests yet hope that no other large requests appear before ISO
can come up with something more comprehensive?"

To me it seems the best alternative is IETF for the languages I am
interested in submitting.  (The ISO requirements prohibit many of the
languages I have.)

So, seems I should go ahead with IETF from your standpoint?

2) Back to the question of "mass registration."  Is this possible?  I
used the same resources for all of the 159 languages I want to submit.

Thanks again : )
Pavla


----- Original Message -----
From: "Pavla &OR Francis Frazier" <pfrazier9@earthlink.net>
To: "John Cowan" <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
Cc: <ietf-languages@eikenes.alvestrand.no>; <Peter_Constable@sil.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 1:41 PM
Subject: Re: Haitian


Dear John,

Thank you for this link.

You wrote "This is still bibliographic (broadly construed) in that it
requires that a sufficient number of
films or videos or sound recordings be in one or more libraries;
"mere" conversational use of the language is not enough to provide an
ISO tag for it."

Okay, so it looks like ISO is probably not the place for these names,
then.  ( Although the language names are those used by the Ethnologue*
and/or by Smithsonian's Handbook of North American Indians**, as
included in references in my original submission to IETF.  Although my
submission is, as stated before, a "hybrid" of these and based on
other cited resources as well, there are no names in my submission
which do not appear in these expert collections.)

*Ethnologue Languages of the World, Fourteenth Edition.Barbara F.
Grimes, Editor. Consulting Editors: Richard S. Pittman & Joseph E.
Grimes, 2000. SIL International
**Smithsonian's Handook of North American Indians. Smithsonian, 1996.
Sturtevant, William C. General editor; Ives Goddard, Volume Editor|
(Editor of Languages) (vol 17) The Smithsonian's Handbook of North
American Indians. Smithsonian, 1996.

You also wrote:
The RFC 3066 (IETF) process, OTOH, focuses on documents that
*define* the language, so that it is known, now and later, exactly
what language it is that's being tagged: given the existence
(by chance) of distinct languages with the same name, this
proviso is necessary.  The IETF process can also create tags for
language varieties (e.g. en-scouse is the Scouse dialect of
English spoken in Liverpool and environs), provided there is
some defining documentation, formal or informal.

I will have to confer with some HL7 folks, but, if I am understanding
you correctly, it appears that IETF would indeed be the best choice
for our purposes.  I appreciate your help.

Thanks again
Pavla
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
To: "Pavla &OR Francis Frazier" <pfrazier9@earthlink.net>
Cc: <ietf-languages@eikenes.alvestrand.no>; <Peter_Constable@sil.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: Haitian


Pavla &OR Francis Frazier scripsit:

> http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/iso639-2form.html :
> Evidence of sufficient number of documents to establish separate
code
> per ISO 639-2 Annex A A.2.1 (request by one agency with 50 documents
> or five agencies with a total of 50 among them). Please cite name of
> institution(s) where documents are held and number at each. Example:
> Library of Congress (65) (Required)

You overlook the sentence

# Documents include all forms of material and is not limited to text.

from http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/iso639jac_n3r.html
which is the "Working principles for ISO 639 maintenance" document
and should take priority over the form.  This is still bibliographic
(broadly construed) in that it requires that a sufficient number of
films or videos or sound recordings be in one or more libraries;
"mere"
conversational use of the language is not enough to provide an ISO tag
for it.

The RFC 3066 (IETF) process, OTOH, focuses on documents that
*define* the language, so that it is known, now and later, exactly
what language it is that's being tagged: given the existence
(by chance) of distinct languages with the same name, this
proviso is necessary.  The IETF process can also create tags for
language varieties (e.g. en-scouse is the Scouse dialect of
English spoken in Liverpool and environs), provided there is
some defining documentation, formal or informal.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_
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