New item in ISO 639-2 - Zaza

Peter Constable petercon at microsoft.com
Wed Aug 23 09:53:29 CEST 2006


> From: Doug Ewell [mailto:dewell at adelphia.net]


> Well, now THIS is interesting.  ISO/DIS 639-3 has no code element "zza",
> but it does have "diq" for Dimli and "kiu" for Kirmanjki (both listed as
> languages of Turkey).  So it appears we have a case where the same
> language(s) is (are) represented by different code elements in 639-2 and
> 639-3.

Before jumping to conclusions, you need to remember that all you have seen of the code table for ISO 639-3 is *draft*. 


> I guess we will add a subtag corresponding to this new 639-2 code
> element,

Is there a choice at present?


> but I'm curious about whether this will force a change in
> 639-3, and whether this sort of mismatch could happen after 639-3 goes
> live.  That could make things messy in the Registry in the 3066ter era.

There will be indeed a change in the 639-3 code tables: macrolanguage mappings from zza to dlq and kiu will be added.

This is not a "mismatch" as you had in mind. It is a new macro-language entity for which the component members were already in 639-3. That's a possible scenario that will have to be considered in developing 3066ter, but I don't think it is a particularly complicated problem to deal with.



Peter Constable


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