<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>RA have now published all comments from the review
period and I encourage everyone to read them, you can find them after
the rejection statement in the PDF file (scroll down):<br></div><a href="http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2015-046.pdf" target="_blank">http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2015-046.pdf</a><br></div>Beyond the rejection statement from the RA there are 7 comments on the application; 2 negative and 5 positive.<br><br>I want to make some comments on the rejection of a language code for Övdalian/Elfdalian:<br><br>- The 2 negative comments are from Anna Westerberg and John Helgander, both of them associated with the <a href="http://www.sprakochfolkminnen.se/om-oss/verksamhet/about-the-institute.html" target="_blank">Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore</a> which is <i>"a Swedish government agency with a focus on dialects, language policy, language planning [...]</i>". John Helgander writes that <i>"the issue is a contested one and there is no general agreement among scholar</i>",
however there are no references given and as far as I know - and I've
asked and tried to find out more about it extensively - the only
scholars that still doubts that Övdalian/Elfdalian is a language is in
fact <b>only</b> those from the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore.<br><br>-
Westerberg claims that if Övdalian/Elfdalian was spoken in Norway it
would have been considered as a dialect. First of all this is simply not
true, I'm from Norway and I don't know about any dialects in Norway
that are as distinct from the Norwegian standards (Bokmål or Nynorsk) as
Övdalian/Elfdalian. Norway society is also considerably more tolerant
than Sweden when it comes to use of dialects in the public sphere, and
even though the dialects can differ a lot they are all mutually
intelligible. I'm sure that if Övdalian/Elfdalian was spoken in Norway
it would have been recognized as a minority language a long time ago. In
Sweden, however, there is an official policy of "language cultivation"
(check website of Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore).<br><br></div><div>- When we sent our application we were asked to give extensive
sources/references, whereas the 2 negative comments lack
references/sources for several claims. Westerberg simply end her letter
by stating that she represent a Swedish
Govenmental agency. I'm not sure about the relevance of this
self-referential source as development of ISO 639 should not reflect
opinions of national governments.<br><br></div><div>- I wonder if RA
misunderstand the application as a re-battle of the language codes for
Dalecarlian, Jamtska and Scanian which were removed after protest from
Swedish officials. However Övdalian/Elfdalian is really another issue
than those cases. And I really hope that the RA exercise their mandate
with institutional independence from national governments.<br></div><div><br></div><div>- The RA writes that the problem is when the issue is considered in the <i>functional perspective</i>.
I don't understand this as Övdalian/Elfdalian in fact have important
functions in Älvdalen where it is spoken; There is a magazine, books are
created, there is a standardized written form, it is used extensively
in social media; check out their <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/dalskum/">facebook page</a>,
they have poems, songs and Christmas concerts in Övdalian/Elfdalian,
and maybe more important the language is an important identity marker
for the whole local community. All political parties locally in Älvdalen
support the recognition of Övdalian/Elfdalian as a language. Of course
the language do not keep important functions for Sweden as a whole, but
I don't understand why it is relevant that the language don't have
important functions for Westerberg, Helgander and others who do not
themselves speak it, what we should consider is if the language have
important functions for the native speakers, and in the case of
Övdalian/Elfdalian the answer is definitely yes.<br><br></div><div>- I
think the evidence demand of "at least 50 works written in the language
are held in libraries" is really unfair. Many many language codes for
other languages have been accepted without this demand, I don't
understand why there should be a special requirements like this for
Övdalian/Elfdalian.<br><br></div><div>- One of the most problematic formulations in the rejection is that the RA say Övdalian/Elfdalian "<i>fall under the “roof” of a more dominant standardized language that already has a Part 2 code</i>".
I'm tempted to ask what kind of "roof" they're talking about. It is
clearly not a linguistic roof; They have themselves stated that if you
look at the structure of the language there are compelling evidences
that it is another language than Swedish. So then what type of roof is
it? To me it seems clear that the "roof" they talk about must be an
ethnic or national roof. However ISO 639 are codes for languages, not
ethnicity or nations. This have always been one of the great problems
for the people in
Älvdalen while they have been fighting to get their language recognized for
more than 30 years: They consider themselves ethnically as Swedish
people, but they speaking another language. This combination seem very
complicated to grasp for Swedish
officials.<br></div><div><br>- You should check the statement from Ulum
Dalska, the local language association in Älvdalen, they've added the
introduction of The Little Prince in both Övdalian/Elfdalian, Swedish
and English, for those of you not speaking any Scandinavian language you
might get the feel about exactly how big the differences are by
comparing the Övdalian/Elfdalian and Swedish text. For those speaking
any Scandinavian language the issue should be pure clear;
Övdalian/Elfdalian is a language and obviously not a Swedish dialect. It
is not even a borderline case.<br><br></div><div>I guess it will make
most sense to register Övdalian/Elfdalian under Section 3.6 as a primary
language subtag, and then remove the subtag again if RA accept a new
ISO application in the future.<br><br></div><div>Best regards<br></div><div>Mats Blakstad<br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2016-02-06 19:00 GMT+01:00 Doug Ewell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:doug@ewellic.org" target="_blank">doug@ewellic.org</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">John Cowan wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
The fact is that English uses the old Latin names of the provinces<br>
and their subdivisions rather than the Swedish names. It is not<br>
a question of a new transcription into English, but the use of<br>
traditional English names.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
In BCP 47 we use ISO 639-3 names, and although Elfdalian obviously doesn't have one (otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion), here is what Ethnologue says on its Swedish page (<a href="http://www.ethnologue.com/language/swe" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.ethnologue.com/language/swe</a>):<br>
<br>
Location: [ ...] Elfdalian dialect: northern Dalarna, southeastern Älvdalen municipality.<br>
<br>
Dialects: [ ...] Elfdalian (Älvdalska, Övdalian, Övdalsk), [...] Elfdalian is considered the most archaic vernacular within Dalecarlian, preserving many feature of Old Norse.<br>
<br>
The parenthesized forms are local forms; this is a standard Ethnologue convention.<br>
<br>
And of course Ethnologue names are about as closely related to 639-3 names as you can get.<br>
<br>
I think it's clear that the preferred English name is Elfdalian, regardless of what it "should" be, or what it is in other languages. Of course, this is orthogonal to the question of what the BCP 47 *subtag value* should be.<span class="im HOEnZb"><br>
<br>
--<br>
Doug Ewell | <a href="http://ewellic.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://ewellic.org</a> | Thornton, CO 🇺🇸 <br></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">
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