Criteria for languages?

[Doug Ewell]

Mark Davis ? <mark at macchiato dot com> wrote:

> B. The criteria for macrolanguages are also very murky to me. Take the 
> two cases:
>
> a. Latvian was changed to a macrolanguage, and what was formerly 
> considered Latvian is titled Standard Latvian
>
> b. Swiss German was not changed to a macrolanguage; instead, 
> Walliserdeutsch is no longer considered Swiss German.
>
> Could someone clarify why the choice is made one way in one case, and 
> another way in the other case?

Well, the choice hasn't been made yet by ISO 639-3/RA, at least as far 
as we know; these are just proposals so far.  We'll have to wait until 
the decisions are published, or possibly get an early heads-up from 
Joan.

Basically, in order to claim that Latvian should be a macrolanguage, the 
requester needs to show that it is sometimes appropriate to speak of 
Standard Latvian and Latgalian as separate languages, and sometimes to 
speak of them as a single language called "Latvian."  Likewise for 
Standard Lithuanian, Samogitian, and "Lithuanian."  I get the feeling 
people still really don't understand what a macrolanguage is supposed to 
be, and think it is another name for a collection.

--
Doug Ewell  |  Thornton, Colorado, USA  |  http://www.ewellic.org
RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14  |  ietf-languages @ http://is.gd/2kf0s ­