The first ballot on this item has been completed. The original ballot form
is included below.

The ballot passed on all points except the identifier and the French name.
It has been approved to include the item, but the identifier has not been
approved, nor has the French name.

The following comments were submitted:
Identifier: "a separate code is better".
French name:  " suggest the French name "moksa" or "mokso" (the "s" in the
two of these names  is a "latin small letter s with caron") The most well
known French source about languages :"Les langues du Monde" published by
Société linguistique de Paris in 1952, uses these two alternative forms of
the language name."

Personally I don't quite understand the comment relating to the identifier.
The intention might be to suggest that en identifier based on the indigenous
name would be preferable.

I invite members to discuss these issues.

Best regards,
Håvard Hjulstad

* * * * * *

ISO 639 Ballot -- New item: Moksha

Please vote by Friday 2003-01-24.

Please see additional information below the ballot form.

Submitted by (your name, please):

(A) -- Inclusion:
(1)
___  I am in favour of including the individual language "Moksha" in 639-2
(alpha-3 code)
___  I am opposed to including the individual language "Moksha" in 639-2
(alpha-3 code)

(B) -- Identifier:
(Please vote even if you are opposed to the inclusion of the item)
(2)
___  I accept the alpha-3 identifier "mdf" for Moksha (if to be included)
___  I do not accept the identifier "mdf" -- Comment:

(C) -- Language names:
(3)
___  I accept the English name "Moksha" (if to be included)
___  I do not accept the English name "Moksha" -- Comment:

(4)
___  I accept the French name "mokcha" (if to be included)
___  I do not accept the French name "mokcha" -- Comment:

(5)
___  I accept the indigenous name "mokshen' kjal'" (if to be included)
___  I do not accept the indigenous name "mokshen' kjal'" -- Comment:


Other comments:

* * * * * * *

Background and additional information:

This is based on a proposal submitted on 2002-10-11 and circulated to the
JAC for comments on 2002-10-30. The proposal was originally for one
identifier for Mordvin. Feedback that has been received (from Michael
Everson and Trond Trosterud (via Håvard Hjulstad)) strongly advise against
one identifier for Mordvin, but rather to identify the two Mordvinic
languages Moksha and Erzya separately. Evidence clearly confirms that the
two languages are separate "individual languages". Since this has not been
contradicted by other input, I propose to encode the two languages
separately, and two separate ballots are circulated.

The proposed identifiers are identical with the Ethnologue identifiers, and
they are not based on indigenous names.

The source of the French name is http://www.eurominority.org/.

The source of the indigenous name is http://www.evertype.com/alphabets/