A proposed solution for descriptions

[Debbie Garside]

Hi John

As I said, I don't really want to get into this.  However, it all depends on
interpretation.  The Unique Identifier *could* be the alpha2/3 tag.  I don't
think it is absolutely necessary to have a Representation.  However, within
the ISO 639 family of standards it would appear, if you were applying ISO
11179, that the alpha code (and this is incorrect terminology but for this
discussion I'm not going into terminology too much), is a Representation of
the Unique Identifier (which is the known name, not preferred name). Makes
sense to me.  Just having an alpha* code (code used here is bad terminology
as it refers to the whole rather than the individual) would not make sense
at all!

No more please - or I will have to go and re-read the 6 part standard myself
to refresh my memory and I haven't got time at the moment.  Am happy to take
the discussion when RFC3066ter comes along.

Best regards


Debbie Garside 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org] 
> Sent: 19 June 2006 13:49
> To: Debbie Garside
> Cc: ietf-languages at iana.org
> Subject: Re: A proposed solution for descriptions
> 
> Debbie Garside scripsit:
> 
> > The code element is a "Representation" in ISO 11179.
> 
> Ah.  And does 11179 (a) require Unique Identifiers, or (b) 
> simply say they are a Good Thing, or (c) even more simply say 
> that if you have such a thing, this is what it is to be called?
> 
> --
> John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan And now 
> here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country 
> should be governed was restricted to six persons in each 
> thousand of its population.
> For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express 
> dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change 
> it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it 
> would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid 
> black treason.  --Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee
>