If the primary concern for ISO 639 was only bibliographical use of the
codes, we would not have gone through what we did in the 10+ years of
development of a 3-character code in having alternative codes. The 21
alternative codes were necessary to satisfy both constituencies and to
deal with the issue of millions of existing records using already
established codes. It is always difficult to satisfy everyone in the
development of ISO 639, but we are making a valiant attempt. More to the
point is that the existing ISO 639-2 list (and ISO 639-1) has been
developed for use with written languages, and accommodating variations in
spoken languages is a matter for further discussion because of the now
broader use of the list.
A recent message (I think from John Clews) made a comparison between
various codes and listed ISO 639-2/B and ISO 639-2/T codes separately. In
discussions at the ISO 639 registration authorities meeting in conjunction
with TC37 in August, we all agreed that the few cases where there are
alternative codes (only 21 out of 450+) should be considered synonyms,
rather than different code sets. Thus the distinction between the
bibliographic and terminologic is essentially unimportant. We have since
updated the code lists on our Web site to discontinue the use of separate
columns for the /B and /T, but rather to list them as synonyms
(http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2).
Rebecca
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^ Rebecca S. Guenther ^^
^^ Chair, ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee ^^
^^ Senior Networking and Standards Specialist ^^
^^ Library of Congress ^^
^^ Washington, DC 20540-4402 ^^
^^ (202) 707-5092 (voice) (202) 707-0115 (FAX) ^^
^^ [log in to unmask] ^^
^^ ^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Gerhard Budin wrote:
>
>
> [log in to unmask] schrieb:
>
> > On 11/06/2001 07:28:10 AM Michael Everson wrote:
> >
> > >The JAC's primary concern is the bibliographical use of the codes.
> >
>
> this is not quite true I am afraid, at least we have done everything
> after the reorganisation of this committee that the JAC has a much
> much broader audience in mind, since the delegates from TC 37 in the
> JAC are linguists whose concern goes far beyond library needs regards
> Gerhard
>
> > If that's the case, then it sounds to me like it's not really a *joint*
> > advisory committee but just a TC 46 committee
>
> > - Peter
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Peter Constable
> >
> > Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
> > 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
> > Tel: +1 972 708 7485
> > E-mail: <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>
>
>
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