Hi,
As to the concern in your second paragraph: I am very sorry that
I haven’t been able to follow up 639 issues as closely as I would have wished
to during the last several months. I am now in the process of catching up,
doing quite a lot of it on my free time. Please let us not discuss this under
the current thread. (To avoid drowning: please just one issue per thread.)
The main issue here seems to have two aspects: (1) Should 639-5
have “group nodes” at positions in the hierarchy where there is just one (and
cannot theoretically be more than one) sub-item. (2) If so, is the proposal
below ok.
I don’t have strong opinions, but some experts did express very
clearly during the development of 639-5 that it is indeed desirable to have
such “group nodes”. As project editor I just implemented what was a clear
consensus among project participants: (a) All “top nodes” need to be “group
nodes”; (b) “important” nodes further down (e.g. hyx) should be “group
nodes”. The current proposal just intends to fill a gap (an error on the part
of the project editor).
The principle was discussed during the development of 639-5. A
change of the principle would be a matter of a revision of 639-5.
Best regards,
Håvard
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Håvard Hjulstad
Standard Norge / Standards Norway
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Fra: ISO 639 Joint
Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] På vegne av Joan Spanne
Sendt: 12. november 2008 00:28
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: ISO 639-5 item needed - Korean (family)
Håvard,
I have in the
past asked specifically for a clarification of the meaning of “hyx –
Armenian (family) – arménien (famille)” and “jpx – Japanese (family) –
japonais (famille)”
in contrast to the individual language in each case. Until that is given, I am
not in favor of adding further code elements that are not clearly distinguished
from individual language elements in Parts 2 and 3.
I have copied
my message of 6 Sept. 2007 which includes these and a number of other
questions to which you have made no response. There are also other outstanding
maintenance issues with regard to Part 5, most notably that Papuan languages
[paa] should be above Trans-New Guinea languages hierarchically, not below it.
-Joan
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Forwarded by Joan Spanne/IntlAdmin/WCT on 2008-11-11 05:09 PM -----
ISO639-3/IntlAdmin/WCT
2007-09-06
02:54 PM |
|
Håvard and all,
I said in my
short message that I had some other issues to raise. These are my more
substantive questions:
I think there
is an error with one code element:
Larger issues:
First and
foremost: what is the basis for a group being included in the code set of Part
5? What criteria should be met in order for a group (whether genetic language
family or other) to warrant a code element? It appears the list is not
attempting comprehensiveness in including groups that encompass all individual
languages, even at the highest level of the hierarchy (130 or more of the
languages in Part 3 may not map to any group code element in Part 5--geographic
or genetic--depending on the genetic classification to which the language might
be assigned).
What
relationships may exist between code elements within Part 5? Is it a rule of
the standard that no code element overlaps (in terms of the individual
languages, and perhaps also proto-languages, which would come within its
denotation) with another code element except in a strictly hierarchical
relationship? Or may the denotations of code elements overlap, allowing for
different geographic boundary sets or different genetic trees?
The standard
makes almost no reference to Part 3 (apart from listing its existence) What is
the relationship between code elements of Part 3 (and individual language code
elements of Part 2) and code elements of Part 5? Should a Part 3 code element t
map to a single code element (the lowest appropriate in a hierarchy) or could
there be mappings to more than one in Part 5? (This would be related to the
previous question.)
A specfic
aspect of the previous quesion is: what is the distinction between a
macrolanguage code element of Part 3 (by definition an individual language code
element in Part 2) and a code element in Part 5 that has apparently identical
meaning, but is labelled a Family--or not labeled at all (e.g. Albanian -3
[sqi] , -5 [sqj]; Quechuan -3 [que], -5 [qwe])?
What is the
purpose of a language family code element for a "family" of one
language that is part of a higher level family? The exception situation is
noted in the document, but no motivation for this is given. This would pertain
to Armenian (family) [hyx], though there are historical varieties also coded
for Armenian; and Egyptian [eqx]. (What is the point even for a
"family" of one that is an isolate?)
And adding to
Milicent's list of questions (e.g., the Bantu question) of the meaning of
specific code element (making use of Ethnlogue 15th ed. classification data),
what is intended, for:
There may be more with ambiguous meanings.
I had a long
discussion with Gary Simons on these matters. I will send his write-up of that
in a separate email.
-Joan
Håvard
Hjulstad <[log in to unmask]> 2008-11-11
02:28 PM
|
|
Dear ISO 639
RAs-JAC members,
At the
meeting of ISO/TC 37/SC 2/WG 1 in Moscow in August 2008 representatives from
the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea pointed out that an ISO 639-5
identifier is needed for “Korean (family)”, corresponding to, e.g., “hyx
– Armenian (family) – arménien (famille)” and “jpx – Japanese (family) –
japonais (famille)”. The Korean language is an individual language (ko / kor),
which is the sole member of the Korean language family. The input from the
Korean delegates was accepted by the WG, and it was explained that the process
of including an identifier for “Korean (family)” would be brought forward to
the 639 RAs-JAC.
Finding a
suitable identifier starting with k is next to impossible.
Proposal:
Identifier: wko
English name:
Korean (family)
French name: coréen
(famille)
Any comments
or discussion?
Best regards,
Håvard
--------------------
Håvard
Hjulstad
Standard Norge / Standards Norway
Postboks 242, NO-1326 Lysaker
besøksadresse / visiting address: Strandveien 18
tel: (+47) 67838600 | faks / fax: (+47) 67838601
direkte tel / direct tel: (+47) 67838645
[log in to unmask]
http://www.standard.no/
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