Language X within scope of language Y

L.Gillam L.Gillam at surrey.ac.uk
Wed Feb 2 12:02:07 CET 2005


The CIA factbook states:

conventional long form: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; note - Great Britain includes the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales

And ISO 3166 contains country codes, yes? But not for England, Scotland and Wales.

3166 has: United Kingdom - code = GB

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html

So, despite the CIA, amongst other sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain if you really want to consider historic connotations, or issues like tagging for language resources across history, for example Newton's Opticks, first published in 1704 before the 1707 and 1801 acts of union), declaring England to be a country/nation, it does not have a country code. 

And, you cannot use a combination of "GB-pan" to accurately represent a "pan" of English origin - which was the point of the original statement that you seem to have missed. 

Your passport cover may say "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" - what does your nationality (inside) appear to be? 

Additionally, Europe includes UK, so by extension would you be happy with a code just for Europe?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no
> [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no]On Behalf Of David Clarke
> Sent: 27 January 2005 08:41
> Cc: ietf-languages
> Subject: Re: Language X within scope of language Y
> 
> 
> >I don't think England as a country is included in ISO 3166, 
> which I'm 
> >not that happy about since "English English" is a valid 
> construction, 
> >and it means you can only have a "UK" pan, which has been made 
> >synonymous with Great Britain, which ignores Northern Ireland.
> 
> Strange, my passport's cover includes the words : United Kingdom of 
> Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
> 
> That suggests UK includes GB and Northern Ireland.
> 
> -- 
> David Clarke
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> Ietf-languages mailing list
> Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
> 


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