Oki all,
Some of you have heard (or read) me on the subject of iso3166 -- country
codes -- in the context of Soverignty and the DNS, as well as trademark
(broadly, in the specific context of WIPO and ICANN). There is another
ISO standard with similar scope, iso639 -- language codes.
Periodically the IETF issues an Internet Draft on the subject, and it has
come up again recently (1st item of mail, below). This will, when it is
advanced to standard, obsolete RFC 1766.
Harald Alvestrand is the host for next month's IETF in Oslo, and I'd like
to hand him a list of languages and a reasonable candidate institution or
institutions which is/are responsible for extentions to the existing version
of iso639.
Please have a look at the table contained in the final 2/3rds of Harald's
current draft, for errors and omissions. If someone would go to the SISLA
and SIL sites and save me some work I'd really appreciate it.
To motivate, here is a collection of excerpts:
639-1 639-2/T 639-2/B English name
aa aar aar Afar
ab abk abk Abkhazian
...
ale ale Aleut
alg alg Algonquian languages
apa apa Apache languages
arp arp Arapaho
ath ath Athapascan languages
aus aus Australian languages
...
chn chn Chinook jargon
cho cho Choctaw
chp chp Chipewyan
chr chr Cherokee
...
zu zul zul Zulu
zun zun Zuni
There are a couple of issues:
who owns (and can exclude) the standard?
is the common American name (and three-letter acronym) preferred by
the actual language community?
is computer support for "minority languages" part of the preservation
of those languages?
I've got answers, but others may have ideas on the subject.
The hack for doing standard support (in the IETF) for languages not covered
in either iso639 or iso639-2 is a language tag registration, with the IANA,
the same folks several of us have gone to for a top-level domain, without
success. There are only two which have been granted, and these are both in
the 2nd and 3rd parts of this message.
The IANA language tag registration brings up more issues:
is the reference authoritative (and who is the authority)?
is the tag requestor authorized by the language community?
As usual, I've got answers, but others may have ideas on the subject. I sure
hope so. Please forward this, or comment on it, as you see fit. I've got two
weeks before I should mail Harald a heads-up, and four weeks until he and I
meet in Oslo.
This is separate from the ICANN issue of domains for First Nations, which is
still outstanding, and from the ICANN and WIPO issue of Indigenous
Intellectual
"Property", now concluded and not favorably, see http://www.iipc.tp. However,
it is a soverignty issue, and an ISO issue, and a cultural heritage issue. For
those who've not run into the ICANN and WIPO acronyms, these are The
Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, and the World Intellectual Property
Organization,
respectively. Neither are especially keen on Indians.
Kitakitamatsinopowaw,
Eric
==========================================================================
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
directories.
Title : Tags for the Identification of Languages
Author(s) : H. Alvestrand
Filename : draft-alvestrand-lang-tags-v2-00.txt
Pages : 21
Date : 09-Jun-99
This document describes a language tag for use in cases
where it is desired to indicate the language used in an
information object.
A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-alvestrand-lang-tags-v2-00.txt
==========================================================================
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 17:55:54 +0100
To: iana@ISI.EDU
From: Michael Everson <everson@indigo.ie>
Subject: Re: reg form for Navajo
Cc: Sean Burke <sburke@ling.nwu.edu>
LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM
Name of requester : Sean M. Burke
E-mail address of requester: sean@qrd.org
Tag to be registered : i-navajo
English name of language : Navajo
Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): Dine Bizaad
Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
Young, Robert W. and William Morgan. 1992. Analytical Lexicon of Navajo.
Albuquerque: U of New Mexico Press.
==========================================================================
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 17:56:37 +0100
To: iana@ISI.EDU
From: Sean Burke <sburke@ling.nwu.edu> (per Michael Everson)
Subject: Re: i-mingo RegReq mail to ietf-languages
LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM
Name of requester : Sean M. Burke
E-mail address of requester: sean@qrd.org
Tag to be registered : i-mingo
English name of language : Mingo
Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): Unontuwaqkaaq
Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
/Rabbit Stories: An Introduction to the Mingo Language/. Thomas McElwain
(thomas.mcelwain@pp.kolumbus.fi) and Jordan Lachler (lachler@unm.edu).
Email for publication data. 1997.
==========================================================================
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