RFC 4645bis: making 'pes' and 'prs' extlangs

[Michael Everson]

On 5 Dec 2008, at 22:31, Randy Presuhn wrote:

> I learned how "Farsi" was an Indo-european language in an  
> introductory linguistics course as an undergrad.

Forgive me. But so what?

> However, a more serious question is what resources to consider in  
> deciding what the English name of a language is.

Farsi is the Persian word for Persian.

Persian is the term used in linguistics, and in all of the decent  
dictionaries.

> In my little corner of the world I've gone for decades thinking the  
> English word was "Farsi," and that is what my Iranian-American and  
> Iranian-British friends have consistently called it. One might even  
> go so far as to argue "Who are these FARHANGESTAN folks to dictate  
> English
> usage?  Do we tell them what to call English in their language?"

Don't fight this fight. You will lose.

> But as a practical matter, just following the ISO source documents  
> seems simplest and most consistent, and leave the debates to the ISO  
> folks.

We are going to propose changes to ISO 639-3, and we will succeed in  
making our case.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com