RE: [Ltru] Is 639-3 bogus ? (was: Proposal: include new"Language-Type:" field)

One can read all my thoughts on this that have been published elsewhere (see http://www.sil.org/silewp/2000/001/). It takes encyclopaedic information to determine with certainty the denotation of a language identifier. But a standard like ISO 639 doesn't have means to provide encyclopaedic information; it just has a table consisting of entries with an ID and one or more names. In 639-3, we extended that with two additional pieces of info, scope and type, in order to help clarify what the intended denotation is for each identifier. That's all I was saying.

Now, we could add comments to entries in the LSR to clarify their denotation. Some questions are immediately raised, though: What should the source for comments be? What determines when comments are added? The source standard isn't going to provide answers to the first question unless what is being added are type or scope values, and John's proposal answers the second by saying, "It's done consistently for all; we don't cherry pick."

I'm not saying I think the type info is needed; I am inclined to think it would be good to include the scope values, though. And as for the source not identifying collections, actually it does: every alpha-3 in 639-2 that is not in 639-3 is a collection.

Peter

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Ellermann [mailto:nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 6:00 AM
> To: ltru@lists.ietf.org
> Subject: [Ltru] Is 639-3 bogus ? (was: Proposal: include new"Language-Type:" field)
> 
> Peter Constable wrote:
> 
> > that's not the only point. If someone is looking at an entry "Foo"
> > and trying to figure out if it's referring to the same language they
> > know as "Phu", which is spoken in New Phuinea, seeing that it's type
> > is Constructed (say), or Ancient (say) would give them a strong clue
> > that it's not.
> 
> That's the job of a comment or description.  For "orq" I found that it
> is "colloquial blackspeech" spoken in "no man's land".  Now does that
> cover Yrch as spoken by the Uruk Hai in Morannon or not, and why would
> anybody look into a IANA registry for such details ?
> 
> Maybe "orq" should get Shavian as Suppress-Script and proclaim Sealand
> as their micronation.  Seriously, does 639-3 allow to register almost
> anything ?  What's the justification to list "orq" except from the fun
> aspect ?
> 
> Frank
> 
> 
> 
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