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

[Andrew Cunningham]

The key is to know what their criteria are shape your application to those
criteria.

Although there are other approaches that could be taken, sometimes it might
be more appropriate to apply for a BCP47 variant subtag rather than an
iso-639-3 language tag

Andrew


On 6 August 2014 03:15, Claire Bowern <clairebowern at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>



-- 
Andrew Cunningham
Project Manager, Research and Development
(Social and Digital Inclusion)
Public Libraries and Community Engagement
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia

Ph: +61-3-8664-7430
Mobile: 0459 806 589
Email: acunningham at slv.vic.gov.au
          lang.support at gmail.com

http://www.openroad.net.au/
http://www.mylanguage.gov.au/
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/
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