On 15 Apr 2011, at 09:18, Håvard Hjulstad wrote:

> The old discussion that Michael refers to (below), was initiated through a submission from Mr Gérard Lang in September 2005, proposing to add the alpha-2 identifier "tu" to the previously assigned alpha-3 identifier "tet". There was a formal ballot (initiated on 2006-01-15), which was unanimous to reject the addition of the alpha-2 identifier. The result of the ballot was published on 2006-03-26.
>
> The main reason relates to the "freeze" issue: "tet" was already in use; the addition of "tu" would be contrary to our policy (rule, promise) not to add alpha-2 identifiers to items where there is already existing data that uses alpha-3 identifiers.

Thank you, Håvard, for reminding us of this principle.

So to respond to what François said:

> How long are we going to deny this language the alpha-2 code point it deserves like many other languages which have such an alpha-2 code point...?!


This language "deserves" to have a language tag, and it has one. Since it has one, we shouldn't add two because one is sufficient. Other languages have two because of the history of ISO 639. Remember that the two-letter code was established in ISO/R 639:1967.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Working in Oslo devising vocabulary for "zbl"