Wikimedia language codes
Doug Ewell
dewell at adelphia.net
Tue Nov 14 15:15:34 CET 2006
Don Osborn <dzo at bisharat dot net> wrote:
> Re "macrolanguage" I do recall your analogy not too long ago of it as
> a shim between ISO-639-2 & 3 for certain categories (I agree that the
> concept [under whatever name] seems have a utility beyond that role).
I think of macrolanguages as a shim between the reality that such
languages are sometimes considered a single language, and the reality
that they are sometimes considered a group of languages. It's a messy
concept from the standpoint of coding for computer systems, creating
nice little 2- and 3-letter boxes for things to fit into, but it is the
way people view these languages and we simply have to work with that.
This is also why I don't apologize for the concept of extended language
subtags, as they leverage the ISO 639-3 roles of "macrolanguage" and
"encompassed language" so as to serve both realities with the best
possible balance.
--
Doug Ewell * Fullerton, California, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14
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