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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
When you compare the list of Gerard Lang with the ISO-639-3 list, you will
find a marked difference. There are for instance a North and South Levantine
Arabic among other variants of Arabic that are not associated with borders
of countries. Also many of the languages he mentions have their own language
codes and others are not part of this list at all.

http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=ara

Thanks,
       Gerard

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 6:15 PM, CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Hmm, Gerard Lang brings up a point regarding the regional subtags although
> I cannot really discuss Ainu and hardly feel qualified to discuss the Arabic
> varieties (my interests in school were syntax and rhetoric; in phonology I
> was more interested in language rhythms and supersegmentals).
>
> In some cases the regional subtags we have may not be sufficient for
> Arabic; in several of the Arabic varieties Gerard listed there are
> sufficient regional subtags-- but I do think we need a regional subtag for
> the "Levant" (Palestinian, Lebanese, Western Jordanian and Syrian Arabic--to
> my knowledge there is really little difference between Palestinian and
> Lebanese; I am no expert however but I recall that my Arabic teacher and
> friends of hers, all Palestinians, tended to front more of their vowels than
> their neighbors did; for example, they said 'felestiniy' whereas the
> neighbors say 'falestiniy' I think; they also fronted some u's but did not
> front a's and u's to quite the extent that native speakers of Hebrew do; the
> available country subtags thus I think suffice if further distinctions are
> needed).
>
> We may also need some regional subtags to distinguish the varieties of
> Iraqi Arabic, and one for the Gulf too (although I think Yemeni Arabic is a
> bit different from the rest of the Gulf--but am not sure).
>
> In cases where the regional subtags are not appropriate, would an extension
> be useful?  Or would too many protocols/applications be unable to deal with
> it?
>
> As I understand it, that is handled by iesg at ietf.org
>
> If more regional subtags are needed, that is not up to ietf-languages of
> course that I know of.
>
> --C. E. Whitehead
> cewcathar at hotmail.com
>
> Lang Gérard gerard.lang at insee.fr
> Wed Sep 10 16:24:42 CEST 2008
> > Concerning varieties of arabic languages, ISO 639-3 classification is, no
> doubt, well motivated, but not alone.
> > For example, the document "Scriptures of the World", published in 1994 by
> "United Bible Societies", that seems> to be an important source for
> Ethnologue, retained:
> > -Arabic;
> > -Algerian arabic;
> > -Chadian arabic;
> > -Egyptian arabic;
> > -Judaeo-Tunisian arabic;
> > -Lebanese arabic;
> > -North African arabic;
> > -Palestinian arabic;
> > -Sudan arabic;
> > -Southern Sudan arabic;
> > -Tunisian arabic.
>
> > Bien cordialement.
>
> > Gérard LANG
>
>
> --
> Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14
> http://www.ewellic.org
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