Re: [Ietf-languages] Proto-languages

[[e-mail]]

Dear Richard,

Indeed, when revising ISO 639, we discussed a number of times the question
of reconstructed (proto-)languages.

They are somewhat similar to constructed languages (such as Esperanto), but
they are usually not supported by a user community and there will generally
be only a few exemplary short text samples for each.  
Worse, as the reconstructions for one supposed proto-language may diverge
considerably from one researcher/enthusiast to the next, these text samples,
even if supposedly having the same content, diverge considerably (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleicher%27s_fable).  The same holds for
individual reconstructed forms. 

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that they ever will be widely used in a way
that would warrant an ISO 639 code, and therefore this is explicitly not
possible: "Specifically excluded from the ISO 639 language code are
reconstructed languages [...]" and: "A reconstructed language inferred from
historical-comparative analysis but not attested from historical sources is
not considered eligible for language coding [...].".  

I would not attempt to submit such requests for new ISO 639 entries.

Best, Sebastian

-----Original Message-----
From: Ietf-languages <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Richard
Wordingham
Sent: Saturday, 2 December, 2023 09:03
To: IETF Languages Discussion <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Ietf-languages] Proto-languages

Greetings,

Some while ago, we had a brief discussion of the English Wiktionary's
non-conformant usage of language tags.  I have since discovered that these
non-conformant tags were being included used as language tags in the HTML of
the web site!  However, sentiment amongst the editors has moved towards it
being a good idea to emit conformant language tags, to the extent that we
are talking about generating a table converting Wiktionary language tags to
BCP 47-conformant tags, not necessarily preserving Wiktionary distinctions.

There are roughly 624 non-compliant Wiktionary language tags, whereas there
are only about 520 private use language subtags available.  A programme to
eliminate the need for private-use subtags will result in a flow of
registration requests.

A lot of these non-compliant language tags are for proto-languages, and I
foresee major problems in registering.  ISO 639-3 prohibits reconstructed
proto-languages, and the number of documents produced in proto-languages is
quite low.  Is there any point in trying to register them with ISO 639? If
so, how do we do it?

Another possibility I see is to register a variant subtag 'proto'
prefixable by any language subtag denoting a language family (formally, we
might have to generalise to anything with the scope of 'collection') to
denote the proto-language of the family.  If ISO 639 automatically rejects
mere proto-languages, is this in principle acceptable?  We might have to
list individual prefixes for the variant subtag, as roa-proto would denote
some variant of Latin (cf. la-peano for Interlingua).

A third possibility is to go for BCP 47 5-8 character language subtags.
 Would formal ISO 639 rejections be required?

Richard.

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