ID for language-invariant strings

Doug Ewell doug at ewellic.org
Tue Mar 18 16:02:11 CET 2008


Mark Davis <mark dot davis at icu dash project dot org> wrote:

> "und" means "undetermined". Not "cannot figure out what language this 
> stuff is in", not "cannot be determined", just "undetermined". That is 
> about as neutral as you can be.

Much has been made of the fact that ISO 639-3, unlike -1 and -2, 
provides pointers to specific descriptions of what the code elements 
mean.  Here is the description of "special" code elements from the 
official ISO 639-3 site (http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/scope.asp#S):

<quote>
Special situations

ISO 639-2 defines three code elements for other special situations. The 
identifier [mul] (multiple languages) should be applied when many 
languages are used and it is not practical to specify all the 
appropriate language codes. The identifier [und] (undetermined) is 
provided for those situations in which a language or languages must be 
indicated but the language cannot be identified. The identifier [zxx] 
(no linguistic content) may be applied in a situation in which a 
language identifier is required by system definition, but the item being 
described does not actually contain linguistic content.
</quote>

The relevant passage for our purposes is "the language cannot be 
identified."

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ



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