Announcing: 17 Official Sign Language Codes Approved...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 23, 2002

Dear SignWriting List:
Did you know there are "language codes" used in computers? To give
you an example, the "language code" for "english"  is "en". We do not
call English "en" when we speak to each other in a conversation, but
on the top of your email messages, you might notice a computer header
that says: "X-Accept-Language: en". That means the person who wrote
the email speaks English. Every recognized language in the world has
a language code, established officially by the International
Organization of Standardization (the ISO) or by another organization
for the internet, called the IANA (I believe)...I hope I have those
names right!

Well... Thanks to Antonio Carlos and so many other computer
programmers, there will be a day when messages will be typed directly
in SignWriting in email. When that day comes, the header on the top
of the email message will say something like:

X-Accept-Language: sgn-BR

That would mean that the person can accept email messages in
Brazilian Sign Language!

So I am writing to thank Michael Everson, who works at times with the
ISO, for applying for, and today receiving, acceptance of 17 new
"Sign Language Codes" for computer programming. It is now official,
that these codes have been established:

------------------

17 Sign Language tags according to RFC 3066

sgn-BE-fr       2001-11-11      Belgian French Sign Language
sgn-BE-nl       2001-11-11      Flemish Sign Language
sgn-BR  2001-11-11      Brazilian Sign Language
sgn-CH-de       2001-11-11      Swiss German Sign Language
sgn-CO  2001-11-11      Colombian Sign Language
sgn-DE  2001-11-11      German Sign Language
sgn-DK  2001-11-11      Danish Sign Language
sgn-ES  2001-11-11      Spanish Sign Language
sgn-FR  2001-11-11      French Sign Language
sgn-GR  2001-11-11      Greek Sign Language
sgn-IT  2001-11-11      Italian Sign Language
sgn-JP  2001-11-11      Japanese Sign Language
sgn-MX  2001-11-11      Mexican Sign Language
sgn-NL  2001-11-11      Dutch Sign Language
sgn-NO  2001-11-11      Norwegian Sign Language
sgn-PT  2001-11-11      Portuguese Sign Language
sgn-SE  2001-11-11      Swedish Sign Language

You can see that the application was made in 2001, but it has taken
all this time to get official approval. For more information on these
codes, go to:


IANA web site:
http://www.iana.org/assignments/lang-tag-apps.htm

Scroll down to find the different signed languages, such as:


LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

(last updated 11 November 2001)

Name of requester          : Michael Everson
E-mail address of requester: everson at indigo.ie
Tag to be registered       : sgn-BE-fr

English name of language   : Belgian-French Sign Language

Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): langue des signes

Reference to published description of the language (book or article):

De Villiers, Jill: Dictionnaire des signes belge. Lie`ge : s/e 1984

Neve, Franc,ois-Xavier et al (eds): Dictionnaire du langage des
signes (1er volume). Bruxelles : CFdB 1983 - 200 p.

Neve, Franc,ois-Xavier et al (eds): Dictionnaire du langage des
signes (2e volume). Bruxelles : CFdB 1984 - 200 p.

Neve, Franc,ois-Xavier et al (eds): Dictionnaire du langage des
signes (3e volume). Bruxelles : CFdB 1984 - 200 p.

Neve, Franc,ois-Xavier et al (eds): Dictionnaire du langage des
signes (4e volume). Bruxelles : CFdB 1985 - 200 p.

Neve, Franc,ois-Xavier / Conradt, Marcel / Hayard, Maurice (eds):
Dictionnaire du langage des signes. Vol. 6. Bruxelles : CFdB 1991 -
200 p.

Hayard, Maurice / Neve, Franc,ois-Xavier / Robert, J. (eds):
Dictionnaire du langage des signes. Vol. 5. Lie`ge : Ce'plus 1990 -
200 p.
====

(created 2001 November 11)
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