Script codes in RFC 3066, 4 issues

John Cowan cowan at mercury.ccil.org
Wed Apr 9 23:02:13 CEST 2003


Peter_Constable at sil.org scripsit:

> What kind of conflicts are you thinking of? (There is more than one kind of
> conflict that needs to be considered.)

Very well, Socrates, I shall submit myself to the elenchos.

Formally, I conceive, there can be only one kind of conflict, viz. that the
self-same code is used for two different purposes in the Ethnologue and
in ISO 639-2.  And formally, there can be only two kinds of resolution:
viz. that the Ethnologue code be changed, and that the ISO code be changed.

The conflicts can be subdivided on the scheme by which you have subdivided
the ISO codes, thus: between a SIL code and

o	an ISO code for an ancient language
o	an ISO code for an artificial language
o	an ISO code for a modern language
o	an ISO code that is ambiguous between several languages
o	an ISO code that implicitly refers to a group of languages
o	an ISO code that is explicitly collective


-- 
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan at ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_


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