[Wikipedia-l] Re: I want to start a new language... with the code"eg" please.

[Brion Vibber]

Andre Engels wrote:
> I have before proposed to go with ISO 639-2. Main rule for ISO 639-2 is
> that there should be 50 different documents divided over at most 50
> places. I would not put it as a hard rule, but I'd say that for languages
> outside ISO 639-2, the onus is with the person wanting to add it to give
> reasons, while for languages within, the onus is with those who want to
> refrain from adding it.

Klingon is everybody's favorite example of "we shouldn't have this", but 
it's got an ISO 639-2 code: tlh, officially added earlier this year.

http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/codechanges.html

Aside from the "it would be embarrassing" factor which seems to be the 
main driver in anti-Klingon sentiment, the copyright status of 
Klingon-language materials is somewhat unclear, as Paramount apparently 
claims them as derivative works. (IANAL! Feist v. Rural may not apply as 
creating a language is pretty clearly a creative work, and the 
Lojban/Loglan case doesn't apply since that was over the trademark to 
the name 'loglan' -- the lojban folks preemptively changed the entire 
vocabulary to avoid potential copyright claims.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)