Scottish English

Keld Jørn Simonsen keld at dkuug.dk
Sat Oct 22 00:05:08 CEST 2005


You are probably right, but I think that ISO 31&&-2 looks like the most
promising spec to use for further qualifying a territory, eg to specify
a dialect. 

Could it be a way forward to try to remedy the problems of ISO 3166-2
that Mark and John mention?

Best regards
keld



On Fri, Oct 21, 2005 at 12:54:15PM -0700, Mark Davis wrote:
> I don't know that I would put it quite so strongly; many nations have 
> stable internal divisions. However, I agree with the main point, which 
> is that in its current state, it is not anywhere near complete enough to 
> use, does not distinguish between stable and unstable codes, and is not 
> accessible. Thus the ISO 3166-2 codes are essentially useless for 
> application within any other standard, including language tagging.
> 
> John.Cowan wrote:
> 
> >Harald Tveit Alvestrand scripsit:
> >
> > 
> >
> >>>In the USA there are a number of states, and there are well-known
> >>>abbreviations for the states. The same in Canada, for its provinces.
> >>>India and China and Brasil and Germany and Switzerland and probably many
> >>>more have such subdivisions of their nation. Great Britain too.
> >>>I even think there is an ISO 3166 part for such subdivisions, but I am
> >>>not sure of the part number, nor whether the standard has been finalized.
> >>>     
> >>>
> >>ISO 3166-2. The code for Scotland is "SCT".
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >Unfortunately, the ISO 3166-2 codes are stable neither in principle nor in
> >practice, neither in code nor in referent.  The U.S. is a special case;
> >its states are not mere subdivisions but are mutually sovereign entities
> >whose existence and territorial bounds are constitutionally guaranteed.
> >Other countries can and do revamp their subdivisions at will, and
> >ISO 3166-2 serves as a mere registry of the code elements and subdivisions
> >in effect at present.  Furthermore, its contents are not freely available.
> >
> >So ISO 3166-2 is completely useless for language tagging.
> >
> > 
> >
> 
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