[RNLD] re: Change requests for ISO 639-3 (Language codes)

[Claire Bowern]

Hi Stephen,
I did a large number (well over 100) of requests in conjunction with
the LinguistList people for Australian languages. I didn't do the
paperwork (which was substantial), just provided the suggestions for
changes and some documentation of the authorities for the changes.
Many but not all of our changes were accepted. Most of them were aimed
at adding new codes for languages which SIL hadn't assigned codes to
in earlier rounds. A few were aimed at amalgamation (a few languages
listed twice under different names) and we tried to set up a few
macro-language terms. We also tried to change the standard names for a
few of the languages to make them more in line with community spelling
and less from the traditional anthropological literature. A few
requests they sent back for additional clarification. I do know of
some communities who had problems proposing new codes for a region
where speakers make clear distinctions between varieties, where it
would be useful to the linguistics world to have different codes, but
where under the mutual intelligibility criterion it's not clear if the
varieties are separate languages. There's a bit of a double standard
there, where mutually intelligible languages of Europe can still get
their own codes for political reasons, but smaller indigenous
languages apparently cannot.
So, summary is all in all it was a positive experience, even if I
disagreed with the outcome here and there.
Claire

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 1:13 AM, Stephen Morey <S.Morey at latrobe.edu.au> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I am interested to know of any experiences that people have had - positive
> or negative - with the process of change requests to the ISO 639-3 language
> codes.
>
> Changes to ISO 639-3 codes are handled by the registration authority SIL
> International. Since SIL International took over as registration authority
> for ISO 639-3, a large number of requests for changes to ISO 639-3 have been
> accepted by SIL International, and incorporated into subsequent editions of
> The Ethnologue. Some other requests for changes have been denied or
> postponed, apparently for a variety of reasons.
>
> Does anyone have experience of requests being accepted or being refused?
> Have there been any decisions made which you felt were problematic in some
> way? I'm interested in any feedback on this.
>
> Stephen
>
>
> Stephen Morey
> Australian Research Council Future Fellow
> Centre for Research on Language Diversity
> La Trobe University
> Website:
> http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/staff/profile?uname=SMorey
>
> Language data website: http://sealang.net/assam
> Dictionary websites: http://sealang.net/ahom;  http://sealang.net/singpho;
> http://sealang.net/phake
>
> Linguistic data archived at::
> DoBeS:  http://www.mpi.nl/DoBeS and follow a link to projects, then Tangsa,
> Tai and Singpho in North East India
> ELAR: http://elar.soas.ac.uk
> PARADISEC:  http://www.paradisec.org.au
>
> North East Indian Linguistics Society: http://sealang.net/neils