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

Phillips, Addison 2008-05-29 17.46:

>> 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. What we have been debating is whether the
> Macrolanguage concept is of use in the structure of "our"
> language tags, and, if so, how (rather than the reverse).

It does anyhow seem as if those who support extlang consider the 
Macrolanguage information generally relevant, while the other 
group is more sceptical about how relevant that information is.

> One of the problems macrolanguage brings us is that it is *not*
> just a "cover story": ISO 639-3 made an honest effort to 
> catalog all macrolanguages, not just the ones that are useful 
> to us. As a result, we have Norwegian, Serbo-Croatian, and some
>  others that do not play well with extlangs (and we have other 
> languages, such as 'zh', that complicate life without extlang).

Regarding "useful": The entire macrolanguage catalog is useful, 
not only that part which encompasses languages which can be tagged 
with extlang. The RFC must give advice for both groups of 
macrolanguages.
-- 
leif halvard silli
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