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)
_X_ 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)
_X_ 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)
_X_ 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)
_X_ I do not accept the French name "mokcha" -- Comment:
I suggest the French name "mok?a" or "mok?o"
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.


(5)
___ I accept the indigenous name "mokshen' kjal'" (if to be included)
_X_ 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/.

- (Same comment as in the vote for erzya)
I strongly doubt whether http://www.eurominority.org is a valid source for the
French variant of the name. When I try to get the information in French on the
Eurominority site, the only thing I get in French is the frame and headings
display, the information itself, that is the languages names, etc. remains in
English.

I have voted negative for the French name "mokcha" and suggested the forms "mok?
a" or "mok?o" basing my argument on the so called French form(s) of the language
that appears in the reference book "Les langues du Monde", I formerly cited. The
only doubt I can put forward is in reference of the same book where it is
written that "the language is spoken in the region of the river Mokcha". Thus it
becommes evident that the name of the language derives from the name of the
region for which the accepted French name in the same book is "Mokcha".

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