[Foundation-l] Community draft of language proposal policy

Sun Sep 7 02:52:50 UTC 2008

ISO-639-3 includes a code for Yinglish. If having an ISO-639-3 code
makes a language "Verified as eligible", I'm afraid for our future.

Gerard says we need ISO-639-3 to avoid another Siberian mess. No,
Gerard, what we need to avoid another Siberian mess is to ask experts
when in doubt, and request verifiable sources for the existence of
dubious languages.

Imagine, for example, that I were to request a Yinglish Wikipedia. If
I met all the other requirements, and translated the interface,
whatever else it is you folks require these days, and you guys created
a Yinglish Wikipedia, that would be just as bad as Siberian. We would
be a laughingstock.

yib.wp...

2008/9/5 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> <grin>The expression is "a royal pain in the arse"... </grin>
>
> The codes that will become RFC 4646 bis codes are ineligible for inclusion
> in the RFC 4646. They are scheduled to become part of the "BCP". From a
> linguistic point of view, the existing codes are incomplete and unusable for
> our purposes. The RFC 4646 bis will not only but also include languages. The
> languages are included in the ISO-639-3 exclusively. This list is the
> closest there is to a list only about languages.
>
> The point is that as much as possible the language committee should _not_
> deal with linguistic issues. It is inviting endless discussions that is a
> mix of politics, linguistics and pragmatics. Like today, the result will not
> satisfy anyone but will be the best result achievable.
>
> When you state that no university will acknowledge Siberain or Zlatiborian,
> you will find that neither does the ISO-639-3. When three universities in
> their infinitive wisdom pronounce that something is a "language", there is
> no guarantee that the BCP will eventually pick this up. This is distinctly
> different from languages accepted by SIL for inclusion of the ISO-639-3. The
> "BCP" is committed to accept these languages..
>
> So you are wrong when you think that the way we are going is inconistent,
> you are wrong when you think that we should accept what universities or the
> community have to say. When theirs is a compelling argument, they can make
> this argument to SIL and we are happy to follow.
> Thanks,
>       GerardM
>
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 7:56 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 7:44 PM, Gerard Meijssen
>> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > When you have the community decide on these issues you invite the
>> > dictatorship of a majority... if that is not political what is ??
>>
>> Gerard, I love you as a friend, but you are really pain in the ass :)
>> When you feel comfortable in linguistic area, you use those arguments;
>> when you feel comfortable in Internet standardization area, you use
>> those arguments (as you convinced me in private conversation a month
>> or two ago that standards like HTML are using ISO, not RFC/BCP codes),
>> and, finally, when you feel comfortable in politics, you use political
>> arguments.
>>
>> So, please, if you want to, let's say, use linguistic arguments, then
>> just try to think a little bit out of the scope of your knowledge --
>> yes, there are some people who know about languages better than you.
>> And I am sure that they would be glad to help to Wikipedia. If you
>> have a problem with asking, I may ask them.
>>
>> And, if you want to use other arguments, please, use them consistently.
>>
>> In this particular case, there are two options: (1) To use political
>> methods or (2) to use expert methods. If you don't want to ask for
>> expertise some university, then you have to ask the community. In both
>> cases LangCom is not an untouchable quasi-political-quasi-expert body,
>> but a body which gathers expertise to support the community. Community
>> is not here to support LangCom (as well as community is not here to
>> support, let's say, stewards -- stewards are here to support
>> community).
>>
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