Please let me restate a couple of key points about my suggestion that people seem not to have picked up:
- I have not proposed this as a substitute for a community's trying to get its code changed. This is intended to be a workaround in the event that is not possible.
- I explicitly stated that the requirement remain that an ISO 639–3 code exists. If a language has no ISO 639–3 code, it does not get an Incubator test, and it does not get a subdomain project. Period.
- I am quite sensitive to the fact that we don't want to make independent judgments as to what is or is not a language. So no code, no test. That does not change.
- This is only intended for cases where the community itself has a code already, but finds its code offensive. It's up to LangCom to decide whether the request is legitimate or frivolous. I would assume that LangCom would take a pretty narrow view
of this, requiring there to be some well-established history behind the request. I wouldn't presume to tell you what that has to look like, but perhaps at minimum there has to have been a request to SIL to change the code first, even if that request was denied.
- Based on the rules above, I see no possibility of a sustained flood of applications from groups that lack a language code. If there is briefly such a flood, it will become clear quickly that such applications will be summarily denied, and that will take
care of that.
- If there are more requests from groups whose existing codes are based on exonyms that would
prefer a change—but the request goes no farther than a preference–just say no.
Thank you for listening.
Steven