as I read your message, the references need to be:
- ISO 639, [DATE], and subsequent registrations and changes
for 2-letter codes
- An expected future extension of ISO 639 that introduces 3-letter
codes
Yes, that seems OK. A full citation for the present standard is:
ISO 639:1988 (E/F)
Code for the representation of names of languages
The International Organization for Standardization, 1st edition, 1988
17 pages
Prepared by ISO/TC 37 - Terminology (principles and coordination)
The standard has no more precise date of publication than 1988.
There is still no work going on to introduce a notation for dialects
and sublanguages within a language code, which some have been
worried about.
No, ISO hasn't managed to produce a more comprehensive list of
codes for languages proper than the current standard, despite
serious efforts, and not even started work on sublanguage codes.
This may be due to the fact that the language coding work is
driven by the requirements of terminology and bibliography,
where the need for sublanguage tags maybe is less manifest than
in general computer applications.
ISO 639 specifies a limited form of sublanguage codes by
supplementing the language code by a country code. That this is
not sufficient for computer applications is shown by existing
software products. In Microsoft Windows/NT for example there are
two different locales for the Nynorsk form of Norwegian and the
Bokmal form. This distinction can't be done using ISO 639.
There is a work going on to define some kind of control sequences to
indicate language within a text stream, but this is still some way
from completion, and should therefore not be referenced except as
"work in progress".
A new work item hasn't been created yet, but that will probably
happen this year. This is however a somewhat different use of
language codes and would correspond to some future content type
"Text/Richer" with language tags.
Do you have a deadline for comments on the draft, after which it
will be submitted as a proposed Internet standard?
/Olle