Doug, your language is more precise now! Much less confusing.
(& Sorry for my asking this change to be made in Section I, the introduction; it is a detail that can be omitted from that section at least. )
--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar at hotmail.com
> From: doug at ewellic.org
> To: ltru at ietf.org
> Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:58:26 -0600
>
> CE Whitehead wrote:
>
>> Doug, I see that ISO 639-3 is all macro-languages and individual
>> languages (http://www.sil.org/ISO639-3/codes.asp); I guess then I just
>> want an explanation of where language subtag elements are assigned a
>> scope value of collection; I see no "collections" listed among the ISO
>> 639-3 codes since 2.3 of the draft mentions this.
>
> OK, I finally see what you are talking about, and you are right -- there
> are a couple of exceptional cases that the text doesn't explain very
> well.
>
> In the current Registry there are two subtags in particular, 'bh' for
> Bihari and 'him' for Himachali. By definition, based on their type and
> length, these came from ISO 639-1 and 639-2 respectively.
{I was looking for the codes identified this way but ran out of time online; sorry; I went through the a's and c's and several other letters; not the b's and h's. My goof.}
> They are not
> encoded in either ISO 639-3 or 639-5, but they are listed on the ISO
> 639-3 Web site as "collective" codes. See:
>
> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp?order=reference_name&letter=b
> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp?order=reference_name&letter=h
>
> ISO 639-2 does include code elements for language collections, but they
> aren't formally identified with a special property the way they are in
> 639-3. Instead, 639-2 has a guideline (stated in their FAQ) that "The
> words 'languages' or '(Other)' indicates that a language code is a
> collective one." Evidently this naming convention was not applied to
> these two code elements, and perhaps that explains why ISO 639-5 failed
> to pick them up as collections.
>
> So to summarize, the last sentence in draft-4645bis-06, Section 2.3,
> paragraph 4, is incorrect or at least misleading:
>
> "Language subtags corresponding to code elements that were identified in
> [ISO639‑3] as representing collection codes, but not listed in
> [ISO639‑5], were also assigned a Scope value of 'collection'."
>
> These language subtags are indeed identified *on the ISO 639-3 Web site*
> as representing collection codes, but I suppose it's not really correct
> to say they are so identified *in ISO 639-3*.
It's partially correct.
> They are assigned in
> 639-2, but not identified there as collections, either formally or
> informally. They are also not encoded in ISO 639-5.
>
> I propose the following replacement for this sentence:
>
> "Existing language subtags corresponding to code elements that were
> identified by the [ISO639‑3] Registration Authority as representing
> collection codes, but not assigned in either [ISO639‑3] or [ISO639‑5],
{Ed. comment: I think you can say just collections; the "code elements" "were identified by the [ISO639-3] registration authorities as representing collections"; you already have the words, 'code elements'}
> were also assigned a Scope value of 'collection'."
>
This is more precise.
It reads o.k. My try:
"Existing language subtags whose code elements were assigned prior to [ISO639-3] or [ISO639-5] and which were identified by the [ISO639-3] Registration Authority as representing collections were assigned a Scope value of 'collection' {even though they are not listed as such in [ISO639-5]}."
> Does that solve the problem?
Yes.
>
> --
> Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14
> http://www.ewellic.org
> http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages ˆ
>
{NOTE: Peter Constable's message suggests that these two codes--[bh] and [him]--identified as collections in ISO639-3, should maybe be identified in ISO639-5 ?? instead-- except that ISO639-3 has already been published and these codes are definitely listed there, as 'collective' so I do not see how that will change now. If ISO 639-3 can still be modified, then maybe we should, as Peter suggests, get more time instead of making this change to the draft.}
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