RE: New RFC 4645-4647 (language tags)

From: Debbie Garside (debbie@ictmarketing.co.uk)
Date: Wed Sep 13 2006 - 13:34:58 CDT

  • Next message: Philippe Verdy: "Re: New RFC 4645-4647 (language tags)"

    Philippe wrote:

    > At some future time, the two competing standards will
    > diverge, unless new policies are adopted in ISO 639 (and ISO
    > 3166 as well) that will also respect the RFC 4646 stability
    > rules; this would require an agreement between the (private)
    > IETF/IESG working group and related (half-public and
    > official, government-supported) ISO working groups. For now,
    > given the existing writers of this RFC suite, there's little
    > risk, given that they are already working with other ISO
    > standard bodies.

    The ISO 639 family of standards do not compete. They co-exist for different
    purposes and the whole is managed for stability by the JAC which includes
    members from both TC37 and TC46. There are a number of members of the
    JAC/TC37/TC46 who are also active on the IETF-languages and LTRU forums
    although no formal liaison has been established (as far as I am aware).

    Best regards

    Debbie Garside

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org
    > [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Philippe Verdy
    > Sent: 12 September 2006 19:16
    > To: Addison Phillips; Mark E. Shoulson
    > Cc: Doug Ewell; Unicode Mailing List; UnicoRe Mailing List
    > Subject: Re: New RFC 4645-4647 (language tags)
    >
    > From: "Addison Phillips" <addison@yahoo-inc.com>
    > > It's pretty simple, actually. ISO 639-3 and ISO 639-2 share
    > a codespace.
    > > That is, if you see a code 'xyz' in ISO 639-2, it will have exactly
    > > the same meaning in ISO 639-3. If you see a code 'xyz' in
    > ISO 639-3,
    > > if it is assigned (or becomes assigned) in ISO 639-2 it will have
    > > exactly the same meaning.
    > >
    > > No language will have two codes assigned in the registry.
    > Users will,
    > > presumably, choose the code that best meets their needs.
    >
    > How will they be able to choose if there's only one code in
    > the registry? Through the registered replacements and the
    > language tag canonicalisation described in RFC 4646? When I
    > read the reply from Doug, it seems that one of the code needs
    > to be registered in the IANA registry, otherwise, neither can
    > be used (even if they are in some part of ISO 639).
    >
    > So the IANA registry becomes the only reference for language
    > tags, and it serves another purpose than ISO 639: code
    > stability in IANA with RFC 4646 (even if one code is weak),
    > instead of currentness and completeness if possible with ISO
    > 639 (even if ISO codes have been changed and reassigned,
    > something that's nearly impossible to track in applications
    > with the current ISO 639 standard).
    >
    > At some future time, the two competing standards will
    > diverge, unless new policies are adopted in ISO 639 (and ISO
    > 3166 as well) that will also respect the RFC 4646 stability
    > rules; this would require an agreement between the (private)
    > IETF/IESG working group and related (half-public and
    > official, government-supported) ISO working groups. For now,
    > given the existing writers of this RFC suite, there's little
    > risk, given that they are already working with other ISO
    > standard bodies.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >



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