Criteria for languages?

[Peter Constable]

From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of CE Whitehead

> And for the second, (2), what macrolanguage would it be classified under?

The question assumes that it _would_ be treated as being encompassed by some macrolanguage. There's nothing a priori requiring that it should. 

We don't require every language to be encompassed by some macrolanguage. Rather, there are some entries in 639 that (to now) have been treated as macrolanguages  because that was the only way synthesize de facto practice involving clumpers on the one hand and splitters on the other. In most cases, the clumpers were librarians and the splitters were Ethnologue and other sources reflecting analysis of linguists, but some cases (such as Chinese) arose independent of either of those groups.



Peter