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See the below exchange in answer to a question about specifying language
in a particular area. Since ISO 3166 may be combined with a 639-2
identifier and 3166 only specifies countries or country subdivisions, what
can we do about regions above the level of country? I guess not much but
specify all within the region. Does anyone know of any ISO work going on
to remedy this problem?

Rebecca

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:53:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Rebecca S. Guenther <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: "Green, Cameron" <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Language and Country Codes

I agree, this is indeed a problem. ISO 3166 now is issued in several
parts, but none of them deal with anything higher than the country
level. They developed a part 2 which includes subdivisions of countries,
but of course that is lower level. I suppose at this time you could only
give multiple codes for all those within the area, which isn't really
adequate.

I will send a note to the ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee to see if there
are any other solutions that someone might recommend.

Rebecca
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^  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 Mon, 28 Nov 2005 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Rebecca (Library of Congress), if I use the ISO 939.2 & ISO 3166 codes and
> I want to code the Tri-Lang. example below, the attribute I put together is
> as close as I can get.  It appears that we must pick a country.  Terms like
> Americas, Latin American really don't work with these codes. I don't
> believe there is ISO codes for terms like Latin American is there?
> 
> Example: 3 language. Americas (English) - French Canadian - Spanish (Latin
> American)
> 
> Attribute: eng-us, fre-ca, spa-mx  (English-United States, French-Canada,
> Spanish-Mexico)
> 
> ISO 639.2 Language Codes
> http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html
> 
> ISO 3166 Country Codes
> http://userpage.chemie.fu-berlin.de/diverse/doc/ISO_3166.html
> 
> Daniel J. Bauer (Dan)
> Consumer and Office Business Information Manager
> 3M Company
> 223-5N-10
> Tel:  651-736-4745
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> 
> ----- Forwarded by Dan J. Bauer/US-Corporate/3M/US on 11/28/2005 02:01 PM
> -----
>                                                                            
>              "Rebecca S.                                                   
>              Guenther"                                                     
>              <[log in to unmask]>                                             To 
>                                        [log in to unmask]                    
>              11/26/2005 05:31                                           cc 
>              PM                                                            
>                                                                    Subject 
>                                        Re: Language Code                   
>                                                                            
>                                                                            
>                                                                            
>                                                                            
>                                                                            
>                                                                            
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The standard specifies that you can combine an ISO 3166 country code with
> a language code. This indicates the variant of a particular language in a
> particular country. See ISO 639-2 in section 4.4
> http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/normtext.html
> 
> So, for instance, English as in the UK: eng-GB
> We recommend the hyphen as separator between the two as per the Internet
> RFC 3066:
> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt
> 
> See also the Frequently Asked Questions:
> http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html
> 
> Please let me know if you have further questions.
> 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> ^^  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 Thu, 10 Nov 2005 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> 
> > Library of Congress, Network Development and MARC Standards Office, below
> > is a link to the ISO 639.2 Codes for the Representation of Name of
> > Languages. I have also attached all the combinations of packaging
> languages
> > 3M uses for our packaging labels and packages.   As you can see there is
> > not a direct correlation to the languages 3M uses on packaging to the
> codes
> > on the ISO 639.2 codes.  Example, ISO 639.2 has no code for French
> > Canadian, no code for Australia English and so on.  Retailers will soon
> > require language codes as a core attribute for data synch.   How will the
> > ISO 639.2 codes address the data synch needs of the Global Registry GS1
> and
> > 1SYNC?  I assume retailers like Staples, WalMart, Home Depot and other
> will
> > want to know if the French is for France or Canada,  Spanish for Mexico
> or
> > Spain.
> > http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/iso639jac.html
> >
> > 3M Companies types of packaging language combinations:
> > English Only (USA)
> > 2 lang. (English - Spanish (Latin American))
> > 2 lang. N.Americas (English - French Canadian)
> > 3 lang. Americas (English - French Canadian - Spanish (Latin American))
> > 4 lang. Americas (English - French Canadian - Spanish & Portuguese (Latin
> > American))
> > 12 Europe Lang.- Danish (Denmark)-Dutch (Netherlands)-English (Great
> > Britain)-Finnish (Finland)-French (France & Switzerland)-German (Germany
> -
> > Switzerland - Austria)-Greek (Greece)-Italian (Italy &
> > Switzerland)-Portuguese (Portugal)-Norwegian (Norway)-Spanish
> > (Spain)-Swedish (Sweden)
> > French Canadian (Canada)
> > Spanish (Latin American)
> > Portuguese (Latin American)
> > English (New Zealand)
> > English (Australia)
> > Danish (Denmark)
> > Dutch (Netherlands)
> > English (Great Britain)
> > Finnish (Finland)
> > French (France & Switzerland)
> > German (Germany - Switzerland - Austria)
> > Greek (Greece)
> > Italian (Italy & Switzerland)
> > Portuguese (Portugal)
> > Norwegian (Norway)
> > Spanish (Spain)
> > Swedish (Sweden)
> > Estonia
> > Lithuania
> > Latvia
> > Chinese (Simplified)
> > Chinese (Traditional)
> > Japanese
> > Korean
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
>