Re: [Ltru] Extlang stability (was: extlang)

I disagree. The base information of whether an instance of written language
is in a given script is pretty clear, and the number of scripts are quite
bounded. While it may take some effort to determine whether a script is in
overwhelming usage for a language, it is a relatively straightforward task.

On the other hand, the boundaries between languages (languages vs dialects
and so on) are always the subject of dispute. According to a conversation
with Ken Whistler, there is a considerable controversy among the linguistics
community over the language model used in SIL which then went into 639-3.
Now, this is not at all to say that they did a bad job -- they did a great
job, especially with the huge number of languages that they had to deal with
-- however, it is inherently a much more difficult task. And the whole
notion of macrolanguage is not something that exists "in the wild"; it is a
construct designed to enable certain usage patterns -- and it is up to us to
determine whether it fits best in 4646bis as the Macrolanguage: field or
hard-wired into extlang.

Mark

On 9/12/07, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
>
> Frank Ellermann scripsit:
>
> > The "extlang" concept is messier than "Suppress-Script", isn't it ?
>
> It is not, particularly because the work has been done for us by
> an ISO RA.  The trouble with Suppress-Script: is that we, the IETF,
> invented it ourselves, but don't have the resources to follow through.
>
> --
> John Cowan  <cowan@ccil.org>  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
>         Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.
>                 --Albert Einstein
>
>
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-- 
Mark