[Ura-list] ISO639-3: Any requests? (Karelian)

[Enum Cohrs]

Hi Michael,

thank you for sharing your thoughts on that! The problem that I see is
that all three varieties (Livvi, Ludian and Karelian proper) are called
Karelian/Karjala, by their speakers as well as by book publishers.

Imagine you got a Karelian book on your desk and you want to give it an
ISO639 label. You look at the smallprint etc., and everywhere it just
says "Karjala". How do you label it?
Okay, yes, one could read half the book and look for expressions that
uniquely identify the specific variety. But most people would've already
put the label 'krl' on it, right? (especially if they have no idea about
that situation) Which is incorrect if we see 'krl' as "Karelian proper"
only, because many of those books are written in Livvi / Olonets
Karelian. This mixed usage prevents us from specifically distinguishing
literature that is written in Karelian proper.

This is not a theoretical issue - most Karelian print publications that
I've seen only say "Karjala" on their cover and small print. The same
goes for library catalogues, e.g. both the library of the University of
Eastern Finland and the public libraries in North Karelia only write
"Karjala" in their records, even for books that explicitely say "Livvi"
on their back cover.
While I do not want to argue about advantages and disadvantages of the
libraries' decision (and maybe the libraries in Russian Karelia handle
it differently), it shows that this underspecification is a real thing
that happens continuously.

Best,

Enum


On 17/02/2019 15:04, Michael Everson wrote:
> Why would you need a meta-language tag? These codes are for identifying books written in various languages, for software interfaces, and things like that. They’re not meant for expressing perfect scientific taxonomies of linguistic relationships. 
> 
> And yes, the code space is a bit messy due to the history of its development. 
> 
> Michael Everson
> 
>> On 17 Feb 2019, at 13:57, Enum Cohrs <m at doomanddarkness.eu> wrote:
>>
>> Dear uralists,
>>
>> since Jeremy also asked about similar requests for other Uralic
>> languages, I'd like to talk about the situation for Karelian.
>>
>> As far as I see, there are three codes for Karelian at the moment:
>>
>> krl - Karelian
>> olo - Livvi
>> lud - Ludian
>>
>> Whilst it is really useful that Livvi and Ludian have their own codes,
>> it is not transparent (for me) whether the code 'krl' is meant for all
>> Karelian varieties or just for "Karelian proper" (thus excluding Livvi
>> and Ludian).
>>
>> Case 1) Assuming that 'krl' is meant for "Karelian proper" only, then it
>> would be quite useful to have a metalanguage code that covers all
>> Karelian varieties. Also, I would suggest that the ISO639-3 entry 'krl'
>> is updated to specifically call it "Karelian proper" to avoid confusion.
>> Especially because in the recent decades, Livvi has become quite a
>> literary standard, and is often just called "Karelian" as well (e.g. Yle
>> Uudizet Karjalakse writes in Livvi, but calls it "Karelian").
>>
>> Case 2) Assuming that 'krl' is meant as a metalanguage code for all
>> Karelian varieties, it would be useful to have a separate code for
>> Karelian proper, to contrast it from Livvi and Ludian.
>>
>> Are there other opinions on this? Am I maybe missing something?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Enum
>>
>>
>> On 2/13/19 5:18 PM, Jeremy Bradley wrote:
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>
>>> I have found myself in an unexpected position where colleagues from SIL
>>> International have approached me about changes to language codes in
>>> ISO639-3 - specifically, they've received several requests to have a
>>> code added for Northwestern Mari, and wanted to know if that is a
>>> legitimate classification. In my interactions with the responsible
>>> person, I mentioned that the way Mari is handled is less than optimal,
>>> and ... she tells me that this can actually be fixed. I just need to
>>> tell her what changes she should request.
>>>
>>> Before I request changes that would be unpopular in the wider scene on
>>> my own initiative, I wanted to ask if: ( a ) anyone has any objections
>>> to my suggestions regarding Mari given below, ( b ) anyone has any
>>> similar requests for other Uralic languages that I should pass on, while
>>> I have a live communication channel with the right person.
>>>
>>> -----------------------
>>>
>>> Currently, there are three codes for Mari:
>>>
>>> chm - Mari (macrocode)
>>> mrj - Western Mari
>>> mhr - Eastern Mari
>>>
>>> The labeling is not great as mhr first and foremost refers to the Meadow
>>> Mari literary standard (used primarily in the eastern parts of Mari El),
>>> and not the Eastern Mari dialects (spoken by the diaspora in and around
>>> the Ural mountains east of Mari El). Since the Eastern Mari diaspora
>>> does use the Meadow literary standard, Russian- and Mari-language
>>> sources in recent years make reference to "Meadow-Eastern Mari" when
>>> talking about the literary standard. This label could be adopted for
>>> mhr, while mrj could be renamed "Hill Mari" to match contemporary usage.
>>> ("Western Mari" isn't as problematic as "Eastern Mari" as there is no
>>> ambiguity here, but it is still a somewhat dated nomenclature that
>>> doesn't represent usage by the speaker community.)
>>>
>>> A new code could be created for Northwestern Mari as there is a distinct
>>> literary norm - it doesn't see much usage and has no official standing,
>>> but it exists. As there are no attempts to create a distinct literary
>>> norm for Eastern Mari (that I know of), the criteria for an own code are
>>> not currently met (there has to be either lacking mutual
>>> intelligibility, or a distinct literary norm, for there to be a code),
>>> and Meadow and Eastern Mari should currently stay subsumed under mhr.
>>>
>>> -----------------------
>>> All the best,
>>> Jeremy
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Jeremy Bradley, Ph.D.
>>> University of Vienna
>>>
>>> http://www.mari-language.com
>>> jeremy.moss.bradley at univie.ac.at
>>>
>>> Office address:
>>> Institut EVSL
>>> Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
>>> Universität Wien
>>> Campus AAKH, Hof 7-2
>>> Spitalgasse 2-4
>>> 1090 Wien
>>> AUSTRIA
>>>
>>> Mobile: +43-664-99-31-788
>>> Skype: jeremy.moss.bradley
>>>
>>
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> 
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