On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 10:43:44PM +0100, Michael Everson wrote:
> At 23:30 +0200 2002-05-07, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
> >On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 09:21:32PM +0100, Michael Everson wrote:
> >>
> >> That is NOT what the JAC said it would do. The JAC said they would do
> >> the following:
> >>
> >> o New codes will no longer be added to ISO 639-1 after the publication
> >> of a revised standard unless they are also added to ISO 639-2.
> >
> >I think this is a storm in a glass of water: The rule says that there
> >may be additions to ISO 639-1 but only if the language is also encoded
> >in ISO 639-2. What is your problem with stability here, Michael?
> >For Internet purposes I cannot see a problem whatsoever.
>
> It is being suggested that this rule could be changed, that is my
> problem. If Hawaiiian has now only a 3-letter code, then the rule
> said a two-letter code wouldn't be added for it. That would mean that
> people could safely tag Hawaiian with three letters. The rule also
> says that for future languages, both a two-letter and a three-letter
> code can be added at the same time.

I think that in some cases it is a sensible thing to add a 2-letter code
for a language that already has a 3-letter code. This could be of quite
some versability eg in the UNIX world. A recent addition was Walloon that
got the code "wa".

I really do not see any problems for the internet with such an addition.
All other codes would still work.

> This is to support the internet application of language tagging,
> where we have a legacy of two-letter codes for Danish and English,
> but also now a set of three-letter codes which are currently being
> used. So far, codes are all unique. Changing this rule would
> introduce ambiguity for e.g. Hawai'ian.

Non sequitur. The iso 639-1 codes are not legacy, but are very much in
use. The 3-letter codes are only emerging, and not really used for
mainstream production in many applications/usage areas.
I do not see how this would change anything for Hawai'ian on the
internet.

Keld