Re: [geolang-comment] First proposals for ISO 639 and 3166 available

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Lars Marius Garshol scripsit:

> It would make life very slightly easier for people, but at the expense
> of us making assertions that we know are nonsensical. 

We don't know that.  (Here comes Epistemology 101 again....)
For certain purposes, the classification into languages and collectivves
made by 639 is not useful.  But for the purposes for which the standard
was designed, that distinction *is* useful, useful enough that the
authors of the standard saw fit to engrave it in normative prose.
Throwing away information is not part of our job.

> Secondly, regardless of what we say formally, most people will
> consider whatever we publish as part of the PSI set to be canon, and
> just use it. Do we really want to lead these innocently trusting souls
> astray? 

But is it really "astray"?

> The reason we shouldn't do it is that if we did we would follow a
> not-very-well-crafted standard to the letter, only to end up with a
> not-very-good result. I feel we need some positive reason *for* doing
> that, rather than reasons why people might ignore the result when they
> know it is sub-optimal.

The fact is that 639-2 is a standardization of the MARC list, which
librarians evolved over decades by precisely the criterion of
usefulness *to them*.  Ditto with the Ethnologue, which is meant to
be useful *to linguists and translators*.  Neither view has primacy
over the other.

-- 
John Cowan   <jcowan@reutershealth.com>   http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
"One time I called in to the central system and started working on a big
thick 'sed' and 'awk' heavy duty data bashing script.  One of the geologists
came by, looked over my shoulder and said 'Oh, that happens to me too.
Try hanging up and phoning in again.'"  --Beverly Erlebacher