[Foundation-l] A proposal for new language creation

Fri Nov 25 09:40:15 UTC 2005

Brion Vibber wrote:
> ilooy wrote:
> 
>>I'd like to suggest that taking into consideration ISO codes or SIL codes may
>>be one solution. This would mean that an outside group which is well
>>established and has looked into the matter has deemed a certain language
>>important enough to be assigned a separate code.
> 
> 
> This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has proved
> insufficient.
> 
> Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
> * split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian [controverial]
> * Klingon
> etc
> 
> and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their own codes
> but which are oft asked for.

Yes.  It's really important that everyone gets this.  The idea of
referencing these external codes is and was a great one in many ways...
it gets the argument out of our hands, it could presumably be a
professionally-decided list, etc.

The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
broken in many many ways.  It was fine for getting a list of things like
"English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it breaks down when
you start looking at it more closely.

--Jimbo