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Doug Ewell | 1 Apr 08:44
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IANA adds new subtags to registry

The three new region subtags, GG, IM, and JE, have now been added to the 
IANA Language Subtag Registry:

http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry

This was accomplished roughly two and a half days after the Reviewer 
submitted the modification forms.  This is a much better turnaround time 
than last time, and IANA is to be congratulated for this excellent 
response.  Obviously the new subtags have attracted a good deal of 
interest; now they can be used conformantly.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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Doug Ewell | 1 Apr 08:56
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Splitting country codes (was: Re: LANGUAGE SUBTAG MODIFICATION - GB)

Erik van der Poel <erikv at google dot com> wrote:

> Do people view this operation as a kind of "splitting" of GB into GB,
> GG, IM and JE? Or do people generally think of this as the addition of
> GG, IM and JE? If many think of this as a split, and an organization
> or individual wanted to follow these splits over time, would they have
> to go to ISO (or subscribe to their newsletter)? It would be nice if
> people didn't have to go to ISO, since that is the very organization
> that we have said is too unstable for our purposes.

ISO 3166/MA does have a concept of "merging" code elements.  When a code 
element is withdrawn, it is added to ISO 3166-3, and if its territory 
(or nationhood or something) is absorbed by another country, the code 
element of the absorbing country is made part of the ISO 3166-3 code 
element.  A classic case was the withdrawal of DD; since this was 
effectively a merger of DD into DE, the ISO 3166-3 code element is DDDE. 
This implies a statement on the MA's part about the relationship between 
DD and DE.

An ISO 3166-3 code element is also created to reflect name changes (e.g. 
Timor-Leste) or "splits" where the original country's code element is 
withdrawn (e.g. the Soviet Union split into 15 countries, none of which 
inherited SU).

When a code element is added, and none is deleted, there is no 
comparable mechanism to express whether a "split" has occurred, although 
it seems reasonable to assume that such a situation implies a split 
(since virtually every inhabited area on Earth falls under an ISO 3166-1 
code element).  But the MA does not normally indicate that this is a 
split, or what country is losing part of its territory.  For example, in
(Continue reading)

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Luc Pardon | 1 Apr 11:41
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Re: Guernsey Jersey and Isle of Man ISO 3166-1 Codes

Addison Phillips wrote:
> 
>>Without the "see also" I may not know to "see also" and
>>overlook the others.
> 
> 
> My problem with "see also" is that it doesn't convey what the relationship
> is. My general expectation would be that these codes would either synonyms
> for "GB" or would somehow inform my choice. 
> 

    It may not tell me what the exact relationship is, but it would at 
least tell me to go and find out elsewhere. If I then decided to not add 
these codes to the supported subset in my application, it would be by 
choice and not by ignorance. Ignorance in these (often sensitive) 
matters is DNG (Definitely Not Good (tm)).

    In this particular case, I would in fact be _dropping_ support for 
these islands' new (post-split) documents without realizing it. Taking 
something away is even more DNG than not giving it.

    Luc Pardon
    Belgium
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Caoimhin O Donnaile | 1 Apr 19:30
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Re: Guernsey Jersey and Isle of Man ISO 3166-1 Codes

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006, Randy Presuhn wrote:

> I can understand adding a comment when the absence of the comment
> might cause someone to mis-tag data.  I don't see how that is the case
> in this instance.

I suppose if someone was going to tag the English language dialect
of the Isle of Man:

   http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/scrap3/ch07.htm

then the new codes mean that it would be tagged as en-IM, rather
than registering a new variant code for it as for en-scouse.

And similarly, Jèrriaises:

   http://www.societe-jersiaise.org/geraint/jerriais.html

which the Ethnologue classifies as a dialect of French and not a 
separate language, would be fr-JE.

The comment might just help someone to realise that, if they
chanced to look in the right place.

Caoimhín
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Erik van der Poel | 1 Apr 21:45
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Re: Splitting country codes

It's great that the registry provides stable region codes (unlike ISO 
3166). I think some organizations and individuals really welcome this 
aspect of the registry. It might be a good idea to think of the registry 
in a broader sense, i.e. not just for language tags, but also for region 
codes.

Erik

Doug Ewell wrote:
> Erik has a point that it would be good to have a place to find 
> information about these splits.  The question is whether the Language 
> Subtag Registry should serve that purpose.
> [...]
> I still think we need to be careful about adding any sort of information 
> that gives the appearance of turning the registry into a general 
> reference work, or is not strictly necessary to implement language 
> tagging.  Debbie has raised a legitimate use case that is directly 
> related to language tagging.
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Randy Presuhn | 2 Apr 01:32
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Re: Guernsey Jersey and Isle of Man ISO 3166-1 Codes

Hi -

> From: "Caoimhin O Donnaile" <caoimhin <at> smo.uhi.ac.uk>
> To: "Randy Presuhn" <randy_presuhn <at> mindspring.com>
> Cc: <ietf-languages <at> iana.org>
> Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 9:30 AM
> Subject: Re: Guernsey Jersey and Isle of Man ISO 3166-1 Codes
>

> On Fri, 31 Mar 2006, Randy Presuhn wrote:
>
> > I can understand adding a comment when the absence of the comment
> > might cause someone to mis-tag data.  I don't see how that is the case
> > in this instance.
>
> I suppose if someone was going to tag the English language dialect
> of the Isle of Man:
>
>    http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/scrap3/ch07.htm
>
> then the new codes mean that it would be tagged as en-IM, rather
> than registering a new variant code for it as for en-scouse.
>
> And similarly, Jèrriaises:
>
>    http://www.societe-jersiaise.org/geraint/jerriais.html
>
> which the Ethnologue classifies as a dialect of French and not a
> separate language, would be fr-JE.
>
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Frank Ellermann | 2 Apr 02:18
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Re: Guernsey Jersey and Isle of Man ISO 3166-1 Codes

Michael Everson wrote:

> Make your case to the rest of the people on this list and
> gather consensus.

The best 3066 approximation of these region codes was probably
to abuse GB, so it could make sense to have a pointer there
why that's now not more necessary, or even a rather bad idea.

BTW, what about the apparent consensus to add Suppress-Script
Latn to frr ?  That request is now several weeks old and still
no decision.
                            Bye, Frank
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Frank Ellermann | 2 Apr 02:27
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Re: Guernsey Jersey and Isle of Man ISO 3166-1 Codes

Addison Phillips wrote:

> another analogy would be if the "US" code had "see also: UM,
> VI"

> (UM: United States Minor Outlying Islands, VI: Virgin
> Islands, U.S.)

Weak analogy, UM makes no sense wrt languages (no population).

For GG / IM / JE my question is:  Did anybody use GB because
there was no better option under 3066 for these regions, and
does a pointer help to update those (hypothetical) tags now ?

It could also affect some stray en-FR abusing FR.  Bye, Frank
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Doug Ewell | 2 Apr 02:34
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Re: Splitting country codes

Erik van der Poel <erikv at google dot com> wrote:

> It's great that the registry provides stable region codes (unlike ISO 
> 3166). I think some organizations and individuals really welcome this 
> aspect of the registry. It might be a good idea to think of the 
> registry in a broader sense, i.e. not just for language tags, but also 
> for region codes.

If other organizations or individuals want to use the registry for their 
own needs, they are certainly free to do so; it's not as if we can 
prevent them, or need to.  I do think, however, there's a difference 
between that and changing, or tailoring, or customizing the contents of 
the registry to meet non-language-tagging needs.

Remember that ISO 3166 began as a coding system for the names of 
countries, and then the codes were adopted as ccTLDs.  That's great, and 
the MA welcomes this usage, but when individuals and groups started 
petitioning the MA for their own ISO 3166 country code so they could use 
it as a ccTLD, the MA had to stop and say, no, that's not what the 
standard is for.

Maintaining a history of which countries (and thus which country codes) 
here merged and split over the years sounds like something the Common 
Locale Data Repository (CLDR) project might be good at.  It might be 
worthwhile for groups that want to use the registry for a more general 
purpose to consider using CLDR instead.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
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Frank Ellermann | 2 Apr 02:55
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Liaison (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG MODIFICATION - GB)

Debbie Garside wrote:

> But the $64,000 question is... would it have happened if this
> group had a liaison officer with ISO 3166 ;-)

The CS disaster ?  Many folks including the IAB Chair thought
that it was wrong, she wrote an open letter about it to the
3166 MA.  It was about a years later that I finally understood
that they are simply forced to recycle alpha-2 region codes at
some point in time.  Five years or fifty doesn't change this.

BTW, _that_ would be an address for the liaison issue, ask the
IAB Chair, she can arrange such things.  IIRC there is already
a liaison between 3166 and one of IAB / IANA / ICANN, so maybe
we'd only have to convince that person to read this list.  Bye
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Gmane