> From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf
> Of John Clews


> I'm more and more inclining to the simple view (hopefully not a
simplistic
> vews) that
> (a) if a language entity exists in ISO 639-3, there needs to be no
special
> effort to add it to ISO 639-2;

Well, ISO 639-2 still has criteria for inclusion that a requester would
need to show are met. 


> and
> (b) if the current specifications of a user group is currently limited
to
> ISO 639-2, they should change their specifications so that it allows
use
> of 3-letter codes from either ISO 639-2 or ISO 639-3, as there is no
clash
> between them. An example of such current specifications which might
need a
> simple amendment could be
> (1) the MARC21 codes, and
> (2) ISO 3066 or its successor/replacement.

For (2), do you mean RFC 3066? If so, it has already been anticipated
that a revision will be drafted, but we need to wait for ISO 639-3 to
get published first. (Work *could* be begun prior to publication, but
there is another revision that has dragged out for over a year now, and
we need to let that get finished -- destabilizing the draft by
introducing further changes as this stage would not be a good thing, I
think.)




Peter Constable