<font face="times new roman,serif">We've been using 'und' for that purpose for years: there's kind of a slope from Undetermined to Indeterminate to Indiscriminate to Any. Part of the problem is that the Special subtags have long had underdefined meanings. Look at </font><span style="font-family:'times new roman',serif"><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> for 'und', for example. Just one word.</span><div>
<span style="font-family:'times new roman',serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman',serif">I'm not sure it is necessary to introduce yet another tag for that purpose, just because of yet more special tags with (to users) overlapping meanings.</span></div>
<div><div><div><font face="'times new roman', serif"><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px"><div><span><br><hr></span></div></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px">
<a href="https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033" target="_blank">Mark</a></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px"><i><br></i></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px">
<i>— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —</i></div></font><div><div><font face="'times new roman', serif"><i><span style="font-style:normal"><i></i></span><i></i></i></font></div></div><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Peter Constable <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:petercon@microsoft.com" target="_blank">petercon@microsoft.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">I’m contemplating making a proposal to the ISO 639 JAC to accept a special-use code, “zzz” for a particular usage scenario. I wanted to get an initial reaction from people here.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">We’ve had a situation arise in which we’ve found it would be useful to have a special-use language ID that could mean ‘any language’. In BCP 47 terms, this is essentially the “*” language range that can be used in matching,
but there are contexts in which “*” cannot be used. Having an alpha-3 language ID with the same meaning could be a useful alternative for these situations.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">For example, it’s common practice in software development for application resources to be organized in a file system using folder names that indicate the language (i.e. are bcp 47 tags). But “*” cannot be used in most
file systems. Here’s a hypothetical usage example: my app has a logo (perhaps with no linguistic content) that’s used for users of most languages, but for Japanese speakers I’m required for business reasons to show another variant of the logo that is specific
to Japanese.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">This would contrast with other existing special-use IDs in ISO 639:
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p><u></u><span lang="EN-CA"><span>-<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-CA">zxx means ‘no linguistic content’; the ID we’d propose would be used in contexts in which language is relevant, but you have a resource that’s applicable to most language. (Perhaps a specific
resource qualified with this would have no linguistic content, but it would be a variant for a class of resources that has some other variants that are language specific. See the example above.)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p><u></u><span lang="EN-CA"><span>-<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-CA">mul means ‘multiple languages’; this may seem like the same meaning, but it is actually distinct from the intent of mul, which is intended to mean that a single resource/document/record
has content in many languages.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p><u></u><span lang="EN-CA"><span>-<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-CA">und: this means that a document has linguistic content but the identity of the language has not been determined; that’s totally different from this<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p><u></u><span lang="EN-CA"><span>-<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-CA">mis: this means that a document is in _<i>particular</i>_ language that doesn’t have its own identifier; that’s totally different from this.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">This would never be intended for a user to indicate a language preference; it would only be used to qualify a document / resource.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Comments?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Thanks<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><u></u><u></u></font></span></span></p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Peter<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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