How to add 2 letter language code in ISO 639-1

[John Cowan]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 5:02 AM, Saroj <sarojchakma20 at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I want to know how to add Chakma Language in two letter code. We have 3
> letter code in ISO 639-3 as ccp.
>

The contact details for the ISO 639-1 Registration Authority are:

Austrian Standards Institute
Österreichisches Normungsinstitut
Heinestrasse 38
A-1020 Wien
Austria

Tel: +43 1 213 00 610 / +43 1 213 00 613
Fax: +43 1 213 00 609
E-mail: ceo at as-institute.at
Website: www.as-institute.at

However, it is very unlikely that Chakma will receive a 2-letter code.  The
text of ISO 639-1 states:

The alpha-2 code was de­vised for practical use for most of the major
> languages of the world that are not only most frequently repre­sented in
> the total body of the world’s literature, but which also comprise a
> considerable volume of spe­cialized languages and terminologies.


While there are some languages on the ISO 639-1 list that clearly don't
qualify by this standard (e.g. Navajo 'nv'), it's unlikely that the
Registration Authority will add any more.  Furthermore, the Registration
Authority as a matter of policy doesn't register any new 2-letter codes for
languages that already have 3-letter codes.  So in practice the 2-letter
codes are a closed list.

In the modern era of language tagging, 2-letter codes are anachronistic,
but we are stuck with them because they are already so widely used.
Adding more of them serves no one well.

-- 
John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
The first thing you learn in a lawin' family is that there ain't
no definite answers to anything.  --Calpurnia in To Kill A Mockingbird
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