Yet again, as with Ndebele, and Mari languages, there is a similar
situation with Sorbian languages (Wendish).

There are different entities in deferred ISO 639-1 proposals and
in ISO 639-2:

------------------------------------------------------------
         639-2        639-1      Language name
------------------------------------------------------------
          wen          --        Sorbian languages (Wendish?)
      --- --- ---     (sf)       Sorbian, Lower
      --- --- ---     (??)       Sorbian, Upper
------------------------------------------------------------
Even if Sorbian languages may not in the end be added to ISO 639-1,
there is a need to consider this 2:1 situation in regard to possible
requests for additions to ISO 639-2 (you can expect such requests
from CEN/TC304, as these have official status in parts of Germany,
and there is a reasonable corpus of documents in both languages).

I have also heard that the term Wendish is thought by Sorbians to be
slightly insulting, though I do not have anything in writing to back
that up.

There are only two Sorbian languages.

Reactions anyone?

Best regards

John Clews

--
John Clews, SESAME Computer Projects, 8 Avenue Rd, Harrogate, HG2 7PG
tel: +44 1423 888 432; fax: + 44 1423 889061;
Email: [log in to unmask]

Committee Chair of  ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages;
Committee Member of ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC22/WG20: Internationalization;
Committee Member of CEN/TC304: Information and Communications
 Technologies: European Localization Requirements
Committee Member of TS/1: Terminology (UK national member body of
 ISO/TC37: Terminology)
Committee Member of the Foundation for Endangered Languages;
Committee Member of ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC2: Coded Character Sets