[Ltru] Re: "mis" update review request

[Peter Constable]

I think ISO 639-2 is clear that the most specific category should be used. That principle is implicit in the "(Other)" collections. I also think that principle in combination with collections creates maintenance problems. (Which is why I suggested that all the "(Other)" entries should just be "languages" entries.)

(Btw, I think I suggested some time ago it might not be a bad thing to deprecate use of collection IDs in IETF language tags.)


Peter


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org]
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 2:07 PM
To: Mark Davis
Cc: LTRU Working Group; ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
Subject: [Ltru] Re: "mis" update review request

Mark Davis scripsit:

> You might like this to be true, but I don't see any substantiation of
> it in the standard. If you could point me to that, I'd appreciate it.

It seems rather self-evident to me that 'ber' is a subset of 'afa',
and so on; but no, the standard doesn't say so.  It does, however, say:

        A collective language code is not intended to be used when an
        individual language code or another more specific collective
        language code is available.

http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/normtext.html section 4.1.1

I take that to mean that "afa" is unsuitable for a Berber language, and
"ger" is unsuitable for English.  A fortiori, "mis" is unsuitable for
a language for which a better code is available.

Questionless, this contradicts the desire for stability, but I don't
see what's to be done about it.  I tried at one point to get all
language collection codes deprecated, but it was pointed out that
there are good reasons for having them, as when insufficient evidence
is available.

--
John Cowan   cowan at ccil.org   http://ccil.org/~cowan
I must confess that I have very little notion of what [s. 4 of the British
Trade Marks Act, 1938] is intended to convey, and particularly the sentence
of 253 words, as I make them, which constitutes sub-section 1.  I doubt if
the entire statute book could be successfully searched for a sentence of
equal length which is of more fuliginous obscurity. --MacKinnon LJ, 1940

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