You are right about number one; I concede that point fully -- I'd overlooked that phrasing, sorry. That means that in ISO 639-2 the following are collections:<br><br>
mul Multiple languages<br>art Artificial (Other)<br><br>plus more normal cases:<br><br>afa Afro-Asiatic (Other)<br>alg Algonquian languages<br>...<br><br>and the following are not collections.
<br><br>und Undetermined<br>zxx No linguistic content<br><br><br>I disagree with your point number two. The only reason that I can conclude that "Miscellaneous Expenses" in a spreadsheet excludes the other listed categories is that I know that everything listed is intended to be a partition. The language codes clearly do not form a partition, since some collections encompass other codes. The collection codes that are tagged with (Other) are clearly meant to be the remainder of partitions, but for the collections that are not tagged with (Other) there is no evidence that they were intended to exclude other cases -- if anything, the contrary -- if they had meant to be the remainder of partitions, they would have said (Other).
<br><br>Moreover, while some may be perfectly willing to have stability go by the wayside, it is extremely important to us, and that is one of the guiding principles of and reasons for BCP 47. That means that if I validly and correctly tag content with "mis", that application cannot be made incorrect by any future change to BCP 47. That is why we can broaden the application of codes, but cannot narrow them. There is no evidence in BCP 47 that I cannot correctly tag the content "kind" with "mis". Now, of course, we all know that we should tag with as much information as we can, so I *should* tag that with "en" if I know I mean the English word, and "de" if I mean the German, or possibly others. If I don't know which one it is, if my protocol allows multiple tags I can use "en, de", and if not I am forced into a choice between "mul" or choosing the 'most likely' language of the set.
<br><br>Mark<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 4/13/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">John Cowan</b> <<a href="mailto:cowan@ccil.org">cowan@ccil.org</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Mark Davis scripsit:<br><br>> Saying that mis is a collection is not breaking, but also not<br>> substantiated by ISO 639-2.<br><br>It's just unfathomable to me how you can get that reading of the standard.<br><br>
> <a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/normtext.html">http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/normtext.html</a><br><br>which says (section 4.1.1, second sentence):<br><br> The words *languages* or *(other)* as part of a language name
<br> in the following tables may be taken to indicate that a language<br> code is a collective language code.<br><br>> <a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php">http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php
</a><br><br>which says (s.v. "mis")<br><br> Miscellaneous languages<br><br>Note the word *languages*. Game, set, and match (or Q, E, and D).<br><br><br>> Saying that "which don't belong to any other collection" is a breaking
<br>> change, *and* is not substantiated by ISO 639-2 at the time the code was<br>> added to the registry (or even now).<br><br>Come, come. Do you expect us, the members of this list, to suppose<br>that when a spreadsheet contains the line "Miscellaneous expenses"
<br>you will find there charges for capital construction or salaries?<br>You will not. You will find expenses *that do not fit into any<br>other category* on the spreadsheet.<br><br>--<br>One art / There is John Cowan <
<a href="mailto:cowan@ccil.org">cowan@ccil.org</a>><br>No less / No more <a href="http://www.ccil.org/~cowan">http://www.ccil.org/~cowan</a><br>All things / To do<br>With sparks / Galore -- Douglas Hofstadter
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Mark