(1) In the Thaana script (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaana & http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thaana.htm) the name seems to be:

Øދިވެހި

(letters dhaalu+ibifili vaavu+ebefili haa+ibifili)

That is Romanized "dhivehi" according to the system given in the Wikipedia.

So the Romanized form of the indigenous name seems to be clearly "dhivehi".

The question, however, is not the indigenous name. Looking up "Divehi" and "Dhivehi" in English returns more hits for the former, but a significant number also for the latter. And since the "daviyani" letter ("d") represents a spirant sound, while the "dhaalu" letter ("dh") actually represents the "d sound", there is every good reason to retain the English form Divehi.

However, I don't have any objection to adding the other form, in effect changing the English name from "Divehi; Maldivian" to "Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian".

The French name is just "maldivien". Should it remain unchanged?

The indigenous name is already correct.

(2) Do we need to vote on changing the English name from "Divehi; Maldivian" to "Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian"?

Håvard

-----Original Message-----

From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rebecca S. Guenther

Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 8:24 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Error Report (fwd)

It seems to me that we should add the alternate spelling to the language name(s). Is there any objection to that?

Rebecca

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 00:41:49 -0400

From: [log in to unmask]

To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]

Subject: Error Report

Resent-Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 07:46:01 -0400 (EDT)

Resent-From: [log in to unmask]

Resent-To: "Rebecca S. Guenther" <[log in to unmask]>

Resent-Subject: Error Report

This data was submitted on: Monday, May 15, 2006 at 00:41:49

name = Sofwathullah Mohamed

client_email = [log in to unmask] url_title = http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langcodes.html

general_error =

general_error_describe =

misspelledword = Divehi

word_location = The Language Name (English)is wrong for div (iso 632-2) is wrong. It should be spelled as Dhivehi. Please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divehi and other Maldivian sites such as http://www.dhivehiobserver.com/,  http://www.dhivehinet.net.mv/ typo = typo_location = link_text = link =

browser = Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060419 Fedora/1.5.0.2-1.2.fc5 Firefox/1.5.0.2 pango-text