[Tibeto-burman-linguistics] ISO changes and International Mother Language Day

[Nathan & Carey Statezni]

Dear all,
Two topics confusingly combined into one email here:


*International Mother Language Day and International Year of Indigenous
Languages*
UNESCO has declared this year to be the International Year of Indigenous
Languages (https://en.iyil2019.org/). Consider if there is an event you can
organize to promote this! A national language development organization in
Myanmar called Language and Social Development Organization (LSDO) has been
hosting celebrations of International Mother Language Day in Yangon on
February 21 for the last 3 years. They organized a larger event this year
to also celebrate International Year of Indigenous Languages. Check out
video coverage at their Facebook page: http://facebook.com/lsdomyanmar

*2018 ISO changes*
The following changes were made to TB languages in the ISO 639-3 standard
based on requests in 2018. Note that I don't make the decisions, so don't
blame me. :) Here's
<https://iso639-3.sil.org/sites/iso639-3/files/reports/639-3_ChangeRequests_2018_Summary.pdf>a
report of the changes globally from 2018.

*Change*

*Language*

*Code*

*Link for more info*

Add new language

Ekai Chin

cey

https://iso639-3.sil.org/request/2018-017

Retire (extinct)

Lui

lba

https://iso639-3.sil.org/request/2018-016

Request to merge two entries (REJECTED)

Waling to go under Bantawa

wly -> bap

https://iso639-3.sil.org/request/2018-005

I was one of the parties making the request for adding Ekai Chin. They live
in an under-researched area of Rakhine State (no prior mention in
publications before our team visited). We found via recorded-text
comprehension testing and confirmed by interviews that they had very low
comprehension of neighboring varieties.

The annual deadline for submitting requests for changes to the ISO standard
is the end of August. The decisions (approved, rejected, etc.) then get
made in the following January and get incorporated into the new version of
the Ethnologue that is released on February 21st each year, International
Mother Language Day. See more details on the process at
https://iso639-3.sil.org/

Nathan
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