Re: [Ltru] Macrolanguage, Extlang. The Sami language situation as example

I may have been the quotee; let me elaborate slightly.
If 'zh' hadn't existed, or had been clearly specified to be only Mandarin,
then I doubt that 639-3 would have introduced a new code as a macrolanguage
for that and other codes. I was not trying to say that macrolanguage made no
sense, or that it wasn't well defined, but that I think it was defined so as
to deal with a particular issue in coding.

After all, many people consider "gsw" to be a "kind" of German, but there is
no macrolanguage that encompasses both "de" and "gsw", and the same can be
said for many, many languages. So I don't think there was an attempt to
search out *all* the cases where sets of language codes were related and
considered a single entity for some purposes, and make macrolanguage codes
for all of them; more to deal with those cases where a code had existed in
639 or some other standard.

Peter can correct me if I have this wrong.

Mark

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Doug Ewell <doug@ewellic.org> wrote:

> "Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon dot com> wrote:
>
> >> I'm one of apparently few people who truly believe the ISO 639-3/RA
> >> definition of "macrolanguage," and don't think of it as some kind of
> >> cover story.
> >
> > Since we have the direct testimony of the folks who conceived of
> > macrolanguage, I don't see any reason why anyone would believe
> > otherwise.
>
> It's been claimed often on this list that macrolanguages are nothing but
> a standardization kludge or "shim" between ISO 639-2 and 639-3.  Here is
> a direct quote from this list, from less than two weeks ago:
>
> "According to everything I've heard, the macrolanguage was devised as a
> construction which is an attempt to rationalize inconsistent approach to
> languages used by previous versions of ISO 639. It does not represent
> any particularly reality beyond that."
>
> That is completely different from the ISO 639-3/RA definition, the one
> Peter has quoted and paraphrased numerous times, the one I believe:
>
> "In various parts of the world, there are clusters of closely-related
> language varieties that... can be considered distinct individual
> languages, yet in certain usage contexts a single language identity for
> all is needed....  Where such situations exist, an identifier for the
> single, common language identity is considered in this part of ISO 639
> to be a macrolanguage identifier."
>
> The first quote says macrolanguages do not represent reality; the second
> (ISO) quote defines them in terms of reality.
>
> The ISO definition is a "cover story" if it is simply an attempt at a
> legitimate-sounding explanation for what is really, under the surface, a
> kludge.  I think if the RA really felt they were a kludge, they would
> have come out and said so (perhaps using a more dignified term than
> "kludge").  But the reality is there are plenty of situations, in all
> walks of life, where people think in terms of "the Chinese language" or
> "the Arabic language" and do not (need to) distinguish between the
> individual languages.
>
> Note, once again, that this is not an argument for or against extlang.
>
> --
> Doug Ewell  *  Arvada, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
> http://www.ewellic.org
> http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
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-- 
Mark