On Apr 4, 2004, at 16:17, Andre Engels wrote:
Same site does say "Both code lists are considered open lists (i.e., it is possible for new entries to be added to the lists)." by the way. (see http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html). What source does Brion have to claim ISO 639-1 is not, if I may ask?
In RFC 3066:
NOTE: In order to avoid versioning difficulties in applications such as that of RFC 1766, the ISO 639 Registration Authority Joint Advisory Committee (RA-JAC) has agreed on the following policy statement:
"After the publication of ISO/DIS 639-1 as an International Standard, no new 2-letter code shall be added to ISO 639-1 unless a 3-letter code is also added at the same time to ISO 639-2. In addition, no language with a 3-letter code available at the time of publication of ISO 639-1 which at that time had no 2-letter code shall be subsequently given a 2-letter code."
This will ensure that, for example, a user who implements "hwi" (Hawaiian), which currently has no 2-letter code, will not find his or her data invalidated by eventual addition of a 2-letter code for that language."
Looks like I misremembered it; 2-letter codes *may* be added (but only along with 3-letter codes, and only if there wasn't already a 3-letter code.)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)