Re: [Ltru] Geocoordinates

[John Cowan <[e-mail]>]

Phillips, Addison scripsit:

> I haven't followed ISO 639-6 since there were (premature?) announcements
> of its possible demise. It might make a suitable extension (in which
> case no WG is needed). Or, when it is mature, couldn't we just create
> a new instance of LTRU with a new charter at that time?

I don't know if that's more or less expensive (in people time, mostly)
than letting LTRU go dormant and then revivifying it.

FWIU, 639-6 codes form a Big Tree, from "all languages" at the top down
through genetic groups, languages, and variants of all sorts (including
script variants).  The codes for languages are harmonized with 639-3's,
so they're already in; the codes for groups are or will be harmonized
with 639-5's.  So what's left is:

(a) codes for language collections that aren't in 639-5, which could
be added to BCP 47 as 4-letter primary language subtags (that size is
currently reserved);

(b) codes for variants other than script and national variants, which
could be added to BCP 47 as 5-character variant subtags by adding a 5th
character (I propose prefixing '6').

Of course the Registry would become bigger than ever, and some of
He Who Must Not Be Named's concerns would actually become realities,
like whether authorized mirrors would be needed to hold down on the
number of downloads.  On the other hand, we could pretty well shut down
ietf-languages@, since there would be little or nothing left to approve
outside the 639 framework.

-- 
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