New Last Call: 'Tags for Identifying Languages' to BCP

JFC (Jefsey) Morfin jefsey at jefsey.com
Tue Dec 21 22:55:26 CET 2004


At 18:14 21/12/2004, John Cowan wrote:
>JFC (Jefsey) Morfin scripsit:
>
> > I would certainly revisit some aspects - the most important one being the
> > ISO-639-2 priorty rather than ISO-639-3 only.
>
>Please be clear in your use of technical terms.  ISO 639 has two parts:
>ISO 639-1, which specifies two-letter codes for about 150 languages, and
>ISO 639-2, which specifies three-letter codes for those same languages
>and about 300 other languages and groups of languages as well.  There will
>be a third part, ISO 639-3, specifying three-letter codes for about 7000
>languages, including all the individual languages specified in ISO 639-2
>(but not the groups).

I apologize for the confusion. I meant ISO 639-1 (not 2). I fully understand
and accept the legacy of the former RFCs and usages. But defaulting to
to ISO 639-1 is in IMHO a complex and unstable thing as it introduces an
IETF dated decision about an ISO list. Also, visually two letters with an
important overlap on ISO 3166-2 is to exciting.

Please understand I am a users side rep. My points are for users simplest
and easier usage. Then I must compromise. But if I do not do it, how will
things also move the users way? And users have shown they can split.
What is not necessarily good.

>There is no need to be distributed just for the sake of being distributed
>(as distinct from read-only mirrors, which are always a good idea).
>New subtags will continued to be passed through a centralized point:
>the ietf-languages mailing list, the language-subtag reviewer, and IANA.

Distribution is not about mirroring but about real wordl/time management,
additional information services and sovereignty respect. If you want
authroritative information on some matters (ex. Liechenstein) better
to obtain it from the concerned authority. For that they must be
organized and kept involved.

But this is for RFC 3066ter.
jfc 



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