Language Identifier List Comments, updated
Frank Ellermann
nobody at xyzzy.claranet.de
Tue Dec 28 06:35:05 CET 2004
Tex Texin wrote:
> Informed and constructive comments are welcomed.
My constructive (but not very informed) 1.6 Euro cents:
DE: move yi to "no specific region". Yiddish was used in many
countries, today it's probably limited to the US and IL.
"fy" may need a region. There are AFAIK three Frisian
dialects, West Frisian should be fy-NL. East Frisian or
Sater Frisian is not the same as North Frisian, therefore
you'd have a problem with fy-DE. For more details see
also <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/fries.html> or
W: <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=FRI>,
N: <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=FRR>,
E: <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=FRS>.
Lower Sorbian (dsb) and Upper Sorbian (hsb) are listed in
ISO 639-2, they are regional languages in Germany. Maybe
add dsb, hsb, and wen (Sorbian) to your DE row if that's
the idea of your table. Whatever wen is, AFAIK there are
only two living versions of Sorbian (German: Wendisch),
maybe wen is a now dead third language, or it's a superset
of dsb and hsb.
You have de-DK (German minority in Denmark), but no dk-DE
(Danish minority in Germany). AFAIK de-DK is just de, or
one of the known variants like de-CH-1996 (new orthography
without ß)
If that's the idea you don't need de-DK, de-BE, or dk-DE.
Otherwise add the missing dk-DE, it's an official minority
in Germany, there are even some special election rules in
the relevant German state of Schleswig-Holstein for this
group.
You have already discussed de-LI. The same reasoning makes
sense for de-BE and de-LU. And you have no de-PL, what is
so special about de-LI ? You also have no de-FR (Alsace),
that's more important than de-BE, de-DK, de-LI, de-LU, or
de-PL, because de-FR is at least a dialect. See also the
section about France (but ignore the dubious "639 gem") in
<http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=GSW>
You also have no de-IT, maybe because it belongs to de-AT,
of course not in a political sense, it's about languages.
<http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Germany>
says that lb is also spoken in DE, and AFAIK that's true,
but you probably don't want a dubious lb-DE, because it
would be the same as lb-LU, lb-BE, or just lb.
ISO 639-2 nds (low Saxon, German "plattdeutsch") is a very
popular and official minority language in Germany, maybe
also in the Netherlands, but they have more variants, see
<http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=768>
> The first row of the table represents languages that I have
> not yet identified as belonging to a region.
li (Limburgian) belongs to NL and maybe also to BE, compare
<http://li.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg> Caveat: there's no li
in <http://www.ethnologue.com/language_index.asp?letter=L>
an (Aragonese) belongs to ES, see
<http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=AXX>
> The 3166 codes may not be fully up to date.
ISO 3166 committed net suicide with CS, R.I.P. Bye, Frank
P.S.: "courtesy copy" because my reply probably won't make it
to the corresponding mailing lists without subscription.
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