RFC3066bis: looking ahead

jcowan at reutershealth.com jcowan at reutershealth.com
Tue Jan 20 19:17:45 CET 2004


Peter Constable scripsit:

> My inclination is that we should go further, though, in
> freezing the use of two-letter identifiers from ISO 639-1 to exactly
> those that are in use today.

What happens when existing countries are divided?  The whole rationale
for identifying regional variants with countries is that countries can
(though not all do) set up local authorities to define orthographic norms.
If China were to split into eight countries (say), presumably Chinese
could have up to eight orthographical norms as a result.

-- 
John Cowan  jcowan at reutershealth.com  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand
on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.
Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land,
to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.
        --Thomas Henry Huxley


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