Applying for a Neo subtag

John Cowan cowan at mercury.ccil.org
Wed Mar 9 09:10:35 CET 2011


Michael Everson scripsit:

> I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I asked the 639-3 RA for a
> new code. Unfortunately their backlog (which seems to have to do mostly
> with tidying up mistakes in existing codes) is large and yesterday I
> was told that my request won't be looked at until June or July (which
> I don't consider to be appropriately responsive).

The fact that ISO 639/RA has an annual approval cycle is regrettable,
but there it is.  It takes rather longer than that to get a character
into Unicode, as you know.

> The case for assigning a code for Neo is simple. It's an
> artificial/auxiliary language, has a variety specification documents,
> a certain web presence, and there are people actively producing text
> in it.

The criterion for registering artificial languages is that they possess a
literature: see http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/types.asp .

> But if I must talk to someone in the vast Linguist List instead of
> relying on the 639-3 RA/JAC, I'd like to know who that would be.

No, going through the RA is the right thing.  It's just that eventually
folks at LL will be asked to weigh in, rather than folks at Ethnologue.

-- 
John Cowan                                cowan at ccil.org
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, LOTR:FOTR


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