The language codes are not intended to be an abbreviation of the language,
and it is not always possible to define new language codes that reflect
the name of the language. We do have criteria for selection of the code
that is detailed in the standard itself in section 4.1. One of those is
"established usage of codes in national and international bibliographic
databases". In the case of Erzya, there was already an established code in
Ethnologue (see: http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp) that uses
"myv". So it is not an error. I hope this answers your question.
Thank you for your interest in ISO 639-2.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^ Rebecca S. Guenther ^^
^^ Chair, ISO 639-2 Maintenance Agency ^^
^^ 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 Wed, 14 May 2003, Peeter [iso-8859-1] Päll wrote:
> Dear Sirs,
>
> Thank you for providing quick and up-to-date information on language
> codes. I have been following the updates frequently, as I am
> implementing these codes in the Place Names Database of our Institute
> (http://www.eki.ee/knab/knab.htm).
>
> The very recent additions, however, have puzzled me. I understand that
> it is not easy to use mnemonic codes every time when new additions are
> made but certainly this principle has been followed more or less
> consistently up till now.
>
> The codes for the Mordovian languages, Erzya and Moksha, are now given
> as myv and mdf, respectively. I could figure out that mdf for Moksha
> contains at least m+d from "MorDovian", and "f" is possibly a modified
> letter of "v" in the same name. But what does the "y" stand for in myv
> (Erzya) remains a secret. Instead, I suspect that the original code
> could have been "mdv" (from Mordovian). Are you sure this code is what
> it is, and if it is so, is there an explanation?
>
> Sorry to bother you but it would be time-consuming to change the codes,
> so perhaps I could ask you to confirm that the code for Erzya is really
> what it is meant to be.
>
> Thank you for all the information you may provide.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Peeter Päll
>
> Eesti Keele Instituut / Institute of Estonian Language
> Roosikrantsi 6
> EE-10119 Tallinn, Eesti/Estonia
> Tel: +372-6446153
> Faks: +372-6411443
>
>
>
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