Re: Reopening RFC 1766 - Language Tags

From: KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE
Date: Wed Nov 15 1995 - 15:06:06 EST


I don't want to enter a debatte about SIL's attitudes, but I want to
remark, that their database is flawed from the beginning.

Defining `language' as opposed to `dialect' is a very hairy, politically
charged affair anyhow, therefore one should first state criteria of
classification and afterwards try to follow those criteria as best as
possible. However, SIL's definition of `language' is blurred, and they tend
to go too deep into dialects, but not cutting at the same level for all
dialects. It is just a thrown-together pile of information of different
quality, not the product of real reasearch.

For a comprehensive list of languages, one should asked university
linguists (there exist some pretty complete compilations, some continents
and language families are better covered than others).

--J"org Knappen.



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