[OT] Changes to ISO standards on i18n

From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Sat Nov 16 2002 - 17:43:13 EST

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    For those who like to keep track of other ISO standards related to
    internationalization:

    The ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency announced a change in the name of East
    Timor, the island nation that recently won independence from Indonesia,
    in ISO 3166-1 [1]. The new short name is "Timor-Leste," while the new
    long ("official") name is "Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste."

    The alpha-2, alpha-3, and numeric codes remain unchanged at TL, TLS, and
    626. Prior to 2002-05-20, the alpha codes were TP and TMP.

    ISO 3166/MA said in the announcement, "The United Nations use the form
    'Timor-Leste' in English, French and Spanish." That would make
    Timor-Leste a language-invariant name, similar to "Côte d'Ivoire."
    "Leste" is Portuguese for "east"; Timor-Leste was a Portuguese colony
    (called "Portuguese Timor") before coming under Indonesian control, and
    Portuguese is one of the nation's official languages.

    Because of this name change and the earlier change in alpha codes, the
    ISO 3166/MA has also announced the addition of "East Timor" to ISO
    3166-3, "Codes for formerly used names of countries," the first change
    to that standard since its publication in 1999 [2].

    [1]
    http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/03updates-on-iso-3166
    /nlv6e-tl.html
    [2]
    http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/03updates-on-iso-3166
    /nlp3i-1e.html

    Also, last month the ISO 639-2 Registration Authority announced new
    alpha-2 and alpha-3 language codes for Sichuan Yi [3]. The codes are
    "ii" and "iii" respectively. Strangely, these new entries are only
    mentioned in the change announcement; none of the downloadable lists
    includes the codes for Sichuan Yi.

    [3] http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/codechanges.html

    -Doug Ewell
     Fullerton, California



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