Macrolanguages (was: Re: BCP 47)

[John Cowan]

Doug Ewell scripsit:

> With about 59 million speakers, Yue obviously was intended to be
> included within "Chinese" in these standards. According to Mark's
> analysis, this implies that bibliographic needs trumped all other
> language identification considerations.

Well, on its face 639-2 was designed for and by bibliographers.

-- 
First known example of political correctness:   John Cowan
After Nurhachi had united all the other         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Jurchen tribes under the leadership of the      cowan at ccil.org
Manchus, his successor Abahai (1592-1643)
issued an order that the name Jurchen should       --S. Robert Ramsey,
be banned, and from then on, they were all           The Languages of China
to be called Manchus.