Technical administrivia

[Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine]

> OK, would you mind explaining what iso639 tags (language
> names) and SIL names are?
>
> Miigwech.
>
> Dan
>
> "While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
>  As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
>  ''T is some visitor,' I muttered "tapping at my chamber door---
>  Only this and nothing more."
>
> "The Raven", Edgar Allen Poe

Morning Dan,

So there are these to strings in a bar, no, applications seperated by a wire,
and for some reason they want to attempt to signal (maybe even agree on) what
language to use, say for error messages, or maybe for .signatures.

The two strings, uh, apps, need to find a common vocabulary, and one of the
practices in the open (and closed) software industry is to use well-known
repositories of labels. Lots of developers use iso639, which gives two and
three letter tags for languages.

"iso" == International Standards Organization"
and
"639" == Some pompous foolishness about languages.

The ":1" strangely means there are 2 (ASCII) letters in the label, and
the ":2: strangely means there are 3 (ASCII) letters in the label.

Now the awkward bit for NDNs is

        a) there's damn little in iso639:1, updated in 2000, viz.,
        ik (inupiaq), iu (inuktitut), nv (navajo), qu (quechua); nv added 2000
and
        b) the maintanence agency (MA) for iso639 is the US LoC, which has
        some blind spots owning to its authorization when it comes to us.

        See http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html

If that weren't a sufficient drag, who is responsible for the correct name
for a living language (or evan a fondly remembered dead one)? Its users or
the LoC? If I weren't fond of (a), I'd name everything and probably make
some earlier naming choices seem dull.

The Wycliffe Bible Translation Society, later renamed The Summer Institute
for Linguistics, and presently SIL International, is SIL, and while they
haven't generated two- and three-letter abbreviations for language names,
their zeal to spread the word has caused them to be aware of more languages,
in the Americas and elsewhere, then the LoC in its role as the ISO 639 MA.

I frequently run into Internet-Drafts that casually assume that no two
stings, uh, apps, will ever attempt to use a language that doesn't have
an iso639:1 tag. The same holds for open-and-shut software developers.
This is usually so that the apps don't have to attempt to parse a variable-
length string (I knew there was a string in here just waiting to assert its
existance) instead of a two-octet blob, and maybe guess if "American" and
"English" actually are interoperable. Internet-Drafts occasionally morph
into RFCs and people get uptight about being conformat to them, or POSIX,
or some other standard, eventually.

After the iso639 dance, there is iso3166. The rule for iso3166 dancing is
you have to have your own country.  HMS Bounty descendents have one, as do
Jersy cows, and some other remarkable bits of International Postal Union
trivia.  You don't have one, but Greenlanders do, as do Nunavuters, and good
day one could claim some Mayans have one.

So, if you want a string, you have to either ask someone who may take glacial
time or require a hall pass from your national standards body (ANSI for Yanks,
Standards Canada for Canuks), or you have to be responsible for the string.

I got a bad case of strings.

Eric
        "J'ai perdu quelque chose... quelque part...  dans mes reves,
        les gens ont commence a parler ... en anglais."
                              Caroline Ennis, Walastakwaik (Maleseet)