Indian languages to be listed

[Peter Hook]

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Dear John Clews,

        There are at least 5000 named languages in the world.  Will a
3-letter code be able to cover them all?  Mathematically possible, yes,
but many of the 3 letter sequences (like QQQ) will not be helpful if there
has to be a relationship between the language name and the abbreviation.

        In any case, I would like to suggest adding a few more from India
and Pakistan:

        1. Poguli (POG?): spoken in Kashmir.  (See my Webpage
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/index.html for a link to more
information on Poguli.)

        2. Bangani (BAN?): spoken in Uttar Pradesh.  Bangani is much in
the South Asian linguistics news lately, as it is purported to have kentum
vocabulary in it.  (See my Webpage for a link to a Bangani page.)

        3. Garhwali (GAR?) is spoken by about 2 million people in Uttar
Pradesh.

        4. Shina (SHN?) is spoken all over the Northern Areas of Pakistan
and in several places in western Kashmir.

        5. For many other languages spoken in Pakistan and Afghanistan
please see Richard Strand's elaborate Webpage on Nuristan.  A link to it
is available from my page.

        I won't continue because you may have some conditions in mind that
render these suggestions pointless.  But a glance at Grierson's Linguistic
Survey of India will illustrate the problem of trying to be exhaustive.

                Sincerely,

                        Peter Hook

                http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/index.html