Hi

Jumping in on this discussion, a few of us met with a group of linguists in Tunisia who are revising the language codes to create a far more complex and inclusive system that will include dialects, spoken and written forms, etc. These linguists represent academic institutions in Europe and Japan, and are acutely aware of the issues that come under discussion here.

I'll start by saying how pleased they were with the multilingualism of Wikipedia. In fact, their study proved that we are the most linguistically diverse site on the Internet. They want to work with us, and are developing a new coding system for languages that will cover approx. 25,000 languages and dialects. With their advice and support, I believe that in a short time we will be able to resolve many of these issues once and for all. And they are extremely interested in cooperating with us.

I will be communicating with them next week, and will report further.

Danny