From: John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>
(iii) One way to read this document, and 3066 itself for
that matter, is that they constitute a critique of IS
639 in terms of its adequacy for Internet use.
Not exactly. It reflects that ISO 639 alone does not support all of the
linguistically-related distinctions that need to be declared about
content on the Internet -- something that ISO 639 itself acknowledges
(in general, not just in relation to the Internet).
Just as RFC 1766/3066 also use ISO 3166 country codes to make
sub-language distinctions (e.g. to distinguish vocabulary or spelling),
so also there is a need to use ISO 15924 to distinguish between
different written forms of a given language. The proposed draft
incorporates ISO 15924 -- something that very nearly happened in RFC
3066, but did not since ISO 15924 was still in process and (as I see it)
those of us involved needed more time to evaluate the idea (which has
happened in the years since then, to the point that we have confindence
about this step).
RFC 1766/3066 also allowed tags to include subtags used for various
purposes, and some tags have been registered to reflect sub-language
variations other than those that can be captured using country (or
script) IDs. This is another way in which ISO 639 alone is not
sufficient, and the need for tags that include such variant subtags has
been demonstrated. The proposed draft constrains the structure of tags
including such variant subtags so as to avoid haphazard and inconsistent
structuring of tags, which would present signficant problems.
(Of course, that is not all that the proposed draft does.)
Thus, I would not describe this as a critique of ISO 639. It is simply a
recognition that ISO 639 itself makes that there are language
distinctions that often need to be made that ISO 639 itself does not
make.
From
that perspective, the difference between the two is that
3066 was prepared specifically to meet known and
identifiable Internet protocol requirements that were
not in the scope of IS 639. The new proposal is more
general and seems to have much the same scope as ISO
639-2 has, or should have.
The scope of what is needed for Internet language tags is greater than
the scope of ISO 639-2, which is even more limited than the general
comments I made about wrt ISO 639 (which comments are equally applicable
to ISO 639-1, ISO 639-2 or ISO DIS 639-3).
It is not in the IETF's
interest to second-guess the established standards of
other standards bodies when that can be avoided and,
despite the good efforts of an excellent and qualified
choice or tag reviewer, this is not an area in which the
IETF (and still less the IANA) are deeply expert. So
there is a case to be made that this draft should be
handed off to ISO TC 37 for processing, either for
integration into IS 639-2 or, perhaps, as the basis of a
new document that integrates the language coding of
639-2 with the script coding of IS 15924.
Speaking as a member of TC 37, of the ISO 639-RA Joint Advisory
Committee, and project editor for ISO 639-3, I can say that it would be
possible for TC 37 to take on a project to develop a standard for
language-tags that addresses some of the needs this draft is attempting
to meet, such as integrating ISO 15924. Note, though, that incorporation
of this draft (or even RFC 1766/3066) into ISO 639-2 would be well
beyond the scope of ISO 639-2. Something of this nature would
necessarily involve a distinct standard, and perhaps one that is not
part of the ISO 639 series.
I'd also like to observe that various members of TC 37 and the ISO
639-RA/JAC have observed or participated in the development of this
draft. For my part, it is not the draft I would have developed if I had
undertaken it, but I see no problems with it from a TC 37 or ISO
639-RA/JAC perspective.
Peter Constable
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf