All these alpha-2 identifiers have been published in ISO 639-1:2002, and
they were also included in drafts since 1999. The errors on the web site in
very unfortunate, and I want to apologize that I haven't discovered them
before. But it still is "just" an error. Can we do the following: In
document http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/codechanges.html the 14
alpha-2 identifiers are added in their chronological place (between 1998 and
2000). A separate text is added after the main table. The text could say
something like: "14 alpha-2 identifiers were approved in 1999 and included
in ISO 639-1:2002. Regretfully these identifiers have been missing in
earlier versions of the tables on this web site. They have now been
included."

Håvard

-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca S. Guenther [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 8. januar 2003 21:57
To: Håvard Hjulstad
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Missing alpha-2 identifiers


To members of the ISO639 JAC: someone brought to  my attention that there
was a 2-character code for "Divehi" in the 639-1 revision that was not on
the master code list. Thus I started a discussion with Havard (see
below). Yesterday we added "dv" while Havard looked at what else was
missing.

When we put up the ISO 639-2 site and included the 2-character code, we
started with the document that Michael had up as I recall. So these new
ones were probably missing from that. Apparently it wasn't noticed before.

Someone wrote me today having just noticed that "dv" had appeared and
questioned how we could add any 2-character codes to an existing
3-character one given the statement that we previously made. I suppose
this was an error of documentation; was there an official mechanism to
publicize these new 2-character codes that came in as part of the 639-1
revision?

In any case, if we now all of a sudden include these, we will have to
explain it. So I suppose the best thing would be to add them to the change
page. I'm not sure which date to include; it will be added now, but the
effective date would be 1999. Have these been published anywhere except in
the revision that went out for ballot?

Any comments on how to handle this?

Rebecca

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, [iso-8859-1] Håvard Hjulstad wrote:

> Dear Rebecca,
>
> I have compared the file
> http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langcodes.html with a
corresponding
> printout from my database. I thought that we had already covered these
> issues, but there remain some discrepancies of two kinds: (1) Missing
> alpha-2 identifiers for 14 items. (2) Differences in the English and
French
> names of some languages.
>
> Below I have listed all the missing alpha-2 identifiers. Those should be
> straight-forward. Later I will make an overview of the differences in
names,
> as some of them might need to be looked at more closely.
>
> There is also one alphabetical error in this list: The order   non nor nno
> nob   should be changed to  nno nob non nor .
>
> Here are the missing alpha-2 identifiers:
>
> aka = ak = Akan
> ava = av = Avaric
> bam = bm = Bambara
> cre = cr = Cree
> div = dv = Divehi [as previously clarified]
> ewe = ee = Ewe
> ful = ff = Fulah
> ibo = ig = Igbo
> kau = kr = Kanuri
> kon = kg = Kongo
> lub = lu = Luba-Katanga
> lug = lg = Ganda
> oji = oj = Ojibwa
> ven = ve = Venda
>
> All these alpha-2 identifiers are identified as "Finalized 1999" in my
> database, which basically means that they were included during the
revision,
> before the JAC became involved.
>
> Best regards,
> Håvard
>
> -------------------------
> Håvard Hjulstad    mailto:[log in to unmask]
>   Solfallsveien 31
>   NO-1430  Ås, Norway
>   tel: +47 64963684  &  +47 64944233
>   mob: +47 90145563
>   http://www.hjulstad.com/havard/
> -------------------------
>
>
>