ON LANGUAGE NAMES /// RE: Results of Duplicate Busters Survey#2//Ainu

[Debbie Garside]

Gérard

If you wish to make an application to change the name of "Ainu (China)" to
"Aynu" you should contact the ISO 639 JAC.

Regards

Debbie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no
> [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Lang Gérard
> Sent: 09 September 2008 07:15
> To: Doug Ewell; ietf-languages at iana.org
> Subject: RE: ON LANGUAGE NAMES /// RE: Results of Duplicate
> Busters Survey#2//Ainu
>
> Dear devil's advocate,
>
> My proposition would be:
> If we have a complete consensus, or even a sufficiently
> general agreement, that there are effectively two distinct
> languages, one japanese and one chiniese, could not we choose
> as language name, the autonym "Ainu" (considered as a
> phonetisation of the japanese language name ?) for the
> japanese language and, as language name, the autonym "Aynu"
> (considered as a phonetisation or romanization of the chinese
> language name ?) for the chinese language ?
> Amicalement.
> Gérard LANG
>
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no
> [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] De la part de
> Doug Ewell Envoyé : mardi 9 septembre 2008 03:58 À :
> ietf-languages at iana.org Objet : Re: ON LANGUAGE NAMES /// RE:
> Results of Duplicate Busters Survey #2
>
> Lang Gérard <gerard dot lang at insee dot fr> wrote:
>
> > Autonyms ( written directly with a variant of the Latin alphabet in
> > their native script, or taken as romanized form of an autonym whose
> > native script is not a variant of the Latin alphabet, or
> taken as an
> > IPA phonetisation of the language name when the considering
> language
> > has no script and is only a spoken language) are very
> certainly much
> > more specific and identifying of the considered language
> name (because
> > they are, in particular, the definitive proof for the existence and
> > for the autonomy [also, of the self-denomination,
> "auto-nomination"]
> > of the considered language) that possible french or english
> language
> > names for the same languages.
> >
> > So, the consideration of autonyms gives a considerable
> separation and
> > identification power for language names and the underlying
> language,
> > that cannot be acheived by the approximation deriving from
> a french or
> > english designation of the same entities.
>
> Devil's advocate: A given culture, especially a relatively
> isolated one such as those whose native language was not
> reflected in ISO 639 until part 3, might well be unaware of
> other cultures, hundreds or thousands of kilometers away,
> where languages that happen to share the same autonym are spoken.
>
> On the other hand, the English and French names (to the
> extent they differ from the native name, which I still
> contend is overstated for the minority languages) may be more
> likely to have been bestowed with an eye toward
> disambiguation, since there is bound to be a linguist among
> the millions of English and French speakers who is aware of
> the shared autonym.
>
> Do I have hard evidence to back my assertion?  Nope.  Do you?
>
> > The case that two autonyms could be identifiying the same language
> > name, and the same underlying language, is certainly very
> infrequent
> > and should be considered with many precautions.
>
> I thought we were debating the opposite scenario: two
> autonyms that happen to be the same but identify two
> different languages.
>
> > Are you definitively certain that the native phonetisations of both
> > Ainu variants you consider as two distinct language names are
> > different ? If then, maybe the romanization of the chinese version
> > could be changed as not to be identical with the japanese autonym.
>
> In other words, you would propose a slight modification of
> the ISO 639-3 name to eliminate the ambiguity.  That's
> exactly what I proposed by doing away with the ambiguous
> "Ainu" name in the Registry and retaining the unambiguous
> "Ainu (Japan)" and "Ainu (China)" which were already in
> 639-3.  I think this way is simpler and easier to comprehend.
>
> --
> Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN
> #14 http://www.ewellic.org
> http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ^
>
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