On Apr 4, 2004, at 16:17, Andre Engels wrote:
Same site does say "Both code lists are
considered open lists (i.e.,
it is
possible for new entries to be added to the lists)." by the way. (see
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html). What source does Brion
have to claim ISO 639-1 is not, if I may ask?
In RFC 3066:
NOTE: In order to avoid versioning difficulties in applications such
as that of RFC 1766, the ISO 639 Registration Authority Joint
Advisory Committee (RA-JAC) has agreed on the following policy
statement:
"After the publication of ISO/DIS 639-1 as an International
Standard, no new 2-letter code shall be added to ISO 639-1 unless a
3-letter code is also added at the same time to ISO 639-2. In
addition, no language with a 3-letter code available at the time of
publication of ISO 639-1 which at that time had no 2-letter code
shall be subsequently given a 2-letter code."
This will ensure that, for example, a user who implements "hwi"
(Hawaiian), which currently has no 2-letter code, will not find his
or her data invalidated by eventual addition of a 2-letter code for
that language."
Looks like I misremembered it; 2-letter codes *may* be added (but only
along with 3-letter codes, and only if there wasn't already a 3-letter
code.)
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)