Request for Comments: Language Codes (fwd)

[David Gene Lewis]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 00:55:56 -0400
From: Eric Brunner <brunner at maine.rr.com>
To: tl-ip at world.std.com, native-telecom at niec.net, triballaw at niec.net,
    sovernet-l at lists.speakeasy.org, INDKNOW-owner at u.washington.edu
Cc: berryj at okstate.edu, unicode at unicode.org
Subject: Request for Comments: Language Codes

Oki all,

Some of you have heard (or read) me on the subject of iso3166 -- country
codes -- in the context of Soverignty and the DNS, as well as trademark
(broadly, in the specific context of WIPO and ICANN). There is another
ISO standard with similar scope, iso639 -- language codes.

Periodically the IETF issues an Internet Draft on the subject, and it has
come up again recently (1st item of mail, below). This will, when it is
advanced to standard, obsolete RFC 1766.

Harald Alvestrand is the host for next month's IETF in Oslo, and I'd like
to hand him a list of languages and a reasonable candidate institution or
institutions which is/are responsible for extentions to the existing version
of iso639.

Please have a look at the table contained in the final 2/3rds of Harald's
current draft, for errors and omissions. If someone would go to the SISLA
and SIL sites and save me some work I'd really appreciate it.

To motivate, here is a collection of excerpts:
639-1     639-2/T   639-2/B   English name

  aa   aar  aar  Afar
  ab   abk  abk  Abkhazian
...
	ale  ale  Aleut
       alg  alg  Algonquian languages
	apa  apa  Apache languages
       arp  arp  Arapaho
       ath  ath  Athapascan languages
       aus  aus  Australian languages
...
       chn  chn  Chinook jargon
       cho  cho  Choctaw
       chp  chp  Chipewyan
       chr  chr  Cherokee
...
  zu   zul  zul  Zulu
       zun  zun  Zuni

There are a couple of issues:
	who owns (and can exclude) the standard?
	is the common American name (and three-letter acronym) preferred by
		the actual language community?
	is computer support for "minority languages" part of the preservation
		of those languages?

I've got answers, but others may have ideas on the subject.

The hack for doing standard support (in the IETF) for languages not covered
in either iso639 or iso639-2 is a language tag registration, with the IANA,
the same folks several of us have gone to for a top-level domain, without
success. There are only two which have been granted, and these are both in
the 2nd and 3rd parts of this message.

The IANA language tag registration brings up more issues:
	is the reference authoritative (and who is the authority)?
	is the tag requestor authorized by the language community?

As usual, I've got answers, but others may have ideas on the subject. I sure
hope so. Please forward this, or comment on it, as you see fit. I've got two
weeks before I should mail Harald a heads-up, and four weeks until he and I
meet in Oslo.

This is separate from the ICANN issue of domains for First Nations, which is
still outstanding, and from the ICANN and WIPO issue of Indigenous
Intellectual
"Property", now concluded and not favorably, see http://www.iipc.tp. However,
it is a soverignty issue, and an ISO issue, and a cultural heritage issue. For
those who've not run into the ICANN and WIPO acronyms, these are The
Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, and the World Intellectual Property
Organization,
respectively. Neither are especially keen on Indians.

Kitakitamatsinopowaw,
Eric

 =========================================================================
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
directories.


	Title		: Tags for the Identification of Languages
	Author(s)	: H. Alvestrand
	Filename	: draft-alvestrand-lang-tags-v2-00.txt
	Pages		: 21
	Date		: 09-Jun-99
	
This document describes a language tag for use in cases
where it is desired to indicate the language used in an
information object.

A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-alvestrand-lang-tags-v2-00.txt


 =========================================================================
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 17:55:54 +0100
To: iana at ISI.EDU
From: Michael Everson <everson at indigo.ie>
Subject: Re: reg form for Navajo
Cc: Sean Burke <sburke at ling.nwu.edu>

LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

Name of requester          : Sean M. Burke
E-mail address of requester: sean at qrd.org
Tag to be registered       : i-navajo

English name of language   : Navajo

Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): Dine Bizaad

Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
 Young, Robert W. and William Morgan. 1992. Analytical Lexicon of Navajo.
Albuquerque: U of New Mexico Press.
 =========================================================================
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 17:56:37 +0100
To: iana at ISI.EDU
From: Sean Burke <sburke at ling.nwu.edu> (per Michael Everson)
Subject: Re: i-mingo RegReq mail to ietf-languages

LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

Name of requester          : Sean M. Burke
E-mail address of requester: sean at qrd.org
Tag to be registered       : i-mingo

English name of language   : Mingo

Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): Unontuwaqkaaq

Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
 /Rabbit Stories: An Introduction to the Mingo Language/.  Thomas McElwain
 (thomas.mcelwain at pp.kolumbus.fi) and Jordan Lachler (lachler at unm.edu).
 Email for publication data.  1997.
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