Persian vs Farsi (half-OT) (was RFC 4645bis: making 'pes' and 'prs' extlangs)

[Doug Ewell]

CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail dot com> wrote:

> I've begun to rethink my original comments; it seems to me that what 
> really has two names is the Persian language as spoken in Iran 
> (Persian/Farsi are thus both English names for Western 
> Persian?)--while maybe the larger (macrolanguage) can be referred to 
> as 'Persian' exclusively--although there does seem to be some debate 
> on this matter as well.

What we are talking about is the names of the two specific languages 
that ISO 639-3 currently calls "Eastern Farsi" and "Western Farsi." 
These languages are not in the Registry yet.  Draft-4645bis proposes to 
add them, along with the other ISO 639-3 languages.

We are not talking about 'fa', which all relevant parts of ISO 639 
currently call "Persian."

> I also agree with Michael Everson that we had probably best not tell 
> Iranians what we will call the name of their language.

We take names from ISO and UN standards, and reserve the right to add 
other names, though we have not yet done the latter.  It should be 
clear, from the hot debates we have had in cases like the Belarusian 
variants, that we do not blithely and unilaterally go in and add our own 
choice of offensive names with reckless disregard for people's 
sensibilities.  There is a public review process.  That's the main 
reason why this list exists.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
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