Subject: [Ltru] Re: ISO/FDIS 639-3 tables revised

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 07:19:52 -0800

Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft dot com> wrote:

>>> Type: A(ncient), C(onstructed), E(xtinct), H(istorical), L(iving), 
>>> S(pecial). This would be very useful information for identification, 
>>> and I suggest we add it as a Language-Type field
>>
>> This field should also be able to hold the value "Collection"
>
> In terms of the attributes on entries defined in ISO 639-3, this would 
> be mixing values for two distinct attributes: type (living, etc.) and 
> scope (individual language, macrolanguage, collection). The type 
> attribute applied to collections would more-appropriately have values 
> such as "genetic" or "geographic" according to how the collection is 
> defined.

I understand this, and I'm prepared to live with it.

The ISO 639-3 distinction between individual languages and 
macrolanguages is important to us from the standpoints of understanding 
the concepts and reloading the Registry for RFC 4646bis.  However, as 
some have pointed out, there will not necessarily always be a 1-to-1 
relationship in the future between macrolanguages and languages subtags 
that have extlangs.  ISO 639-3 may need to change a language from one 
category to the other, but the type of 4646bis subtag would not change.

Collections, on the other hand, are operationally important: we have a 
passage in 4646bis that subtags based on collection codes are to be 
avoided.

The proposed "Language-Type" field would be populated primarily from the 
"Type" field in ISO 639-3, with abbreviations expanded ("Constructed" 
instead of "C") and with "L" suppressed as a default.  Code elements in 
639-2 but not 639-3 have no "Type" field, of course, but those code 
elements -- by definition -- are exactly the collection codes.  There 
needs to be a place to specify that information.  I don't think it would 
make sense to have a separate "Language-Scope" field that would only 
exist for collections, and then have the absence of a "Language-Type" 
field mean "either a living language OR a collection."

I note that the "Scope" field in 639-3 mirrors the "Type" field for the 
"special" ("S") codes mul, und, and zxx.

>>> Scope: we don't need to add this, since it can be derived: something 
>>> is a macro language iff there is an extlang that points to it.
>>
>> I agree.
>
> Well, note that right now you don't have a certain way to tell which 
> entities have a collection scope.

I consider that to be a problem.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

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---

From: Peter Constable <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 13:36:22 -0800

> From: Doug Ewell [mailto:[email-masked]]

> "special" ("S") codes mul, und, and zxx.

Yes. That's not surprising since these are really exceptional, singularities -- special cases to which normal behaviours do not apply. 

Peter Constable