Re: [Ltru] rechartering to handle 639-6 (was FW: Anomalyinupcomingregistry)

[Peter Constable <[e-mail]>]

From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Debbie Garside

> Essentially, all the reasons for including ISO 639-6 are the same as for
> including ISO 639-3.  Unless of course, you think that ISO 639-3 is perfect
> and defines all languages distinctly and that anything else cannot, is not,
> and definitely is not a language.  Then of course you have to decide that
> BCP 47 will only deal with languages and not dialects.  Then, and only then,
> may you exclude ISO 639-6.

Your qualifications notwithstanding, I disagree. While the boundaries of languages and dialects may be debatable generally and in many cases, I think it is the case that there are a good number of cases for which there is current practice and convention in terms of recognizing languages, that this number well exceeds what was covered in 639-1/-2 and is largely encompassed within 639-3. There will remain a relatively small number of cases in which conventionally-recognized language entities are not covered, and those may be covered in 639-6, but if there is conventional acceptance that they should be deemed languages then they are probably candidates for part 3; it would not be worth supporting all of 639-6 just for this particular tail, IMO.

Rather, I think if there is potential benefit from 639-6 it will be in relation to sub-language variations. 



Peter