Alemanic & Swiss German

[Peter Constable]

Ethnologue material, having been published in numerous editions on a quite-regular basis over several decades is hardly undigested material. It is, more likely, the most digested reference of its kind. 
 
That one putative single-letter typo should lead to the suggestion that ISO 639 be built piecemeal from scratch seems to imply some premeditation, but anyone who thinks of Ethnologue as undigested material can hardly have had well-informed meditations. And subjecting everything in 639 to some drawn-out process defined according to some to-be-defined first principles, rather than taking a known entity, using and refining it, does not strike me as a good idea.
 
That's my obviously-biased opinion, at any rate.
 
 
Peter Constable
 
________________________________

From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Marion Gunn
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 3:57 AM
To: IETF Languages Discussion
Subject: Re: Alemanic & Swiss German
 
This is exactly the kind of carry-over of errors (based on same bad experiences of errors carried over from MARC into another part of 639) to which some, including myself, objected years ago, but the SIL block looks like being pushed through anyway.  
 
I still believe that it would be far better, even at this late state, to build each part of 639 ab initio, with due care for cultural concerns and consulting actual language groups at National Body level, as this is a better (older, more politically correct) protocol, rather than take such dangerous shortcuts as swallowing undigested SIL material. 
 
mg
 
On 4 Dec 2006, at 17:06, scríobh Karen_Broome at spe.sony.com:



...
However, the spelling "Alemannic" seems to be far more common than Alemanic. I'm wondering if that's a spelling mistake on SIL that I copied over assuming that resource to be authorative. If I were submitting this application today, I would use the spelling with two n's. 
 
- - 
Marion Gunn * EGTeo (Estab.1991)
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn, Baile an 
Bhóthair, Co. Átha Cliath, Éire.
* mgunn at egt.ie * eamonn at egt.ie *
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/attachments/20061205/0f266c59/attachment-0001.html