[Ietf-languages] Incidental changes to UN M49

[Doug Ewell <[e-mail]>]

The United Nations Statistics Division has made some changes in publication M49, a core standard informing the Language Subtag Registry, in the way it handles the Channel Islands and Sark.

These changes do not currently affect the Registry, because it has subtags for these regions based on the officially assigned ISO 3166-1 code elements GG (Guernsey) and JE (Jersey) and the exceptionally reserved code element CQ (Sark). However, it will be interesting to see if they lead to additional changes to either M49 or 3166-1 in the future.

To see the M49 changes, visit https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ and click on “Recent changes” in the menu on the left side. There is a new category, “Removed from the M49 numerical code list,” which lists 830 for Channel Islands and 680 for Sark.

The referenced footnotes describe the UNSD action:

> (13) Channel Islands (numerical code 830) has been removed from the
> list of geographic regions as it does not follow the scheme of
> regional groupings of M49 which is based on six continental regions,
> further subdivided into 22 sub-regions and 2 intermediary regions
> (Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean). It will be
> included in an extended code list that should become available by end
> of the year and that contains additional groupings of countries or
> areas.
>
> (14) Sark (numerical code 680) has been removed from the list of
> countries or areas. It will be included in an extended code list that
> should become available by end of the year and that contains other
> areas that can be considered as part of larger statistical areas.

The “extended code list,” when released, will probably be worth a look from the BCP 47 standpoint.

UNSD has also restored the M49 categories of “Least Developed Countries,” “Land Locked Developing Countries,” and “Small Island Developing States,” but these categories have no relevance to language identification and are explicitly excluded from BCP 47.

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Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org