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We had this discussion while we were developing MODS in Dec. 2002-- see the archives. I don't see any reason to rehash it. There was support for allowing for both of these standards for encoding language. ISO 639-2 IS a standard and widely used. It provides for many more languages than ISO 639-1. Libraries have been using what is ISO 639-2 for over 30 years in all flavors of MARC and this must be supported. The RFC may alternatively be used. I can give more information on the difference between the two, but it might be sufficient just to look at the archives. Rebecca On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Andrew E Switala wrote: > Ack, speaking of not realizing things, I thought Internet language > specifications were based on ISO 639-1 with an optional country code > (e.g. en-US). Checking RFC 3066, I see this is not the case; xml:lang > can be used for two-letter or three-letter language codes and more: > "" > - All 2-letter subtags are interpreted according to assignments found > in ISO standard 639, "Code for the representation of names of > languages" [ISO 639], or assignments subsequently made by the ISO > 639 part 1 maintenance agency or governing standardization bodies. > (Note: A revision is underway, and is expected to be released as > ISO 639-1:2000) > > - All 3-letter subtags are interpreted according to assignments found > in ISO 639 part 2, "Codes for the representation of names of > languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 code [ISO 639-2]", or assignments > subsequently made by the ISO 639 part 2 maintenance agency or > governing standardization bodies. > > - The value "i" is reserved for IANA-defined registrations > > - The value "x" is reserved for private use. Subtags of "x" shall > not be registered by the IANA. > > - Other values shall not be assigned except by revision of this > standard. > "" > So I must agree, the MODS lang attribute can go. > > --Andy > > >>> [log in to unmask] 01/17/05 1:31 PM >>> > On Jan 17, 2005, at 12:46 PM, Andrew E Switala wrote: > > > MODS guidelines say the lang attribute's value comes from ISO 639-2 > > bibliographic. > > I didn't realize this. > > > (The former is valid for the xml:lang attribute; why MODS has two > > different language attributes is another matter.) > > But an important one. I don't understand this sort of thing. Why not > just use THE xml standard for language coding, instead of once again > relying on library-specific stuff? > > Bruce >