[sw-l] Re: Country and Language Codes, and standardization with ISO

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
September 28, 2004

Wonderful to have support from a member of the Deaf Community. Thank
you, Stuart!!

Val ;-)

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On Sep 28, 2004, at 10:19 AM, Stuart Thiessen wrote:

> I like what Valerie has already worked on. The advantage is that we
> can see language and country relationships. With SGN-ASL, we don't
> have any information as to if we are talking about American Sign
> Language, Argentine Sign Language, Austrian Sign Language, or
> Aboriginal Sign Language :-). It is also less easy to see what
> variants are common within that country.
>
> By doing SGN-US, we have a neutral designation for American Sign
> Language as it is generally signed in the US. The purpose of
> suggesting SGN-US-CA is to identify a variant of American Sign
> Language as it is generally signed in Canada. A third designation can
> be helpful if we need to identify dialects or other variants as
> needed.
>
> SGN-EO wouldn't make sense anyway because that *is* confusing country
> codes and language codes.
>
> SGN is the language code
>
> US is the country code
>
> The issue is the use of a third following designation .... should it
> be a language code or a country code or some other code?
>
> If it was a language code, then we are assuming that the sign language
> generally is associated with the speakers of that spoken language. In
> this example, SGN-CA-EN would then represent ASL as signed in
> English-speaking Canada as opposed to SGN-CA-FR which would then
> represent LSQ as signed in French-speaking Canada.
>
> If it was a country code, then we are associating the language with a
> variant used in that other country. In this example, SGN-US-CA would
> represent ASL as signed in Canada where SGN-CA would represent LSQ as
> signed in Canada since LSQ is unique to Canada.
>
> If it was some other code, then we could focus on the variants. Based
> on what I have read so far, I am not seeing that ISO is interested in
> drilling down to that level, but if we wish to use the ISO standards
> to help us identify that level for web pages, dictionary databases,
> etc., then we will have to figure something out.
>
> But I am not as keen on seeing SGN-ASL ... I think we lose valuable
> information that is already encoded in the current standard.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stuart
>
> Signuno wrote:
>
>> SGN-US-CA won't work because you shouldn't mix
>> language codes with country codes (all these are case
>> INsensitive).  Also, SGN-EO could be a problem for
>> this same reason.
>>
>> Why not deprecate all SGN-twoletter codes and invent
>> and register new SGN-threeormoreletter codes such as:
>>
>> SGN-ASL
>> SGN-LSQ
>> SGN-BSL
>> etc
>>
>> Or is it too late for that?
>>
>> regards,
>>
>>
>> 	
>>
>> 	
>> 		
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>
>