Talk:ISO 639-2

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What's the difference between "bibliographic use" and "terminological use"?--218.102.231.133 03:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The difference reflects the way that ISO 639-2 was put together. For about twenty years before ISO 639-2, libraries used a three-letter code to reference the language in which a book or article was written. Most of these codes were based on the English name for the language, like ger for German. The two-letter code ISO 639 (which later became ISO 639-1) was often based on the native name for a language, like de for German. It was felt that the larger ISO 639-2 standard should reflect the policy of part one rather than that of the library codes. However, lobbying from libraries, who would be a major user of the standard, forced a compromise. On the twenty-two codes where there is significant difference between library codes and ISO 639-1 codes, ISO 639-2 provides two codes, each reflecting one of these codes. The library codes from the basis of the bibliographic code, and ISO 639-1 formsthe basis of the terminological code. For most uses, where there is no existing coding system, the terminological codes are prefered. The draft ISO 639-3 standard uses terminological codes where there are two ISO 639-2 codes. To sum up, German has ISO 639-1 de, ISO 639-2/B ger, ISO 639-2/T deu and ISO 639-3 deu. --Gareth Hughes 14:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks--218.102.231.133 02:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Bibliographic codes are an anglocentric atavism and practically deprecated. RFC 3066 says: [2.3 Choice of language tag] 3. When a language has no ISO 639-1 2-character code, and the ISO 639-2/T (Terminology) code and the ISO 639-2/B (Bibliographic) code differ, you MUST use the Terminology code. NOTE: At present, all languages for which there is a difference have 2-character codes, and the displeasure of developers about the existence of 2 code sets has been adequately communicated to ISO.  So this situation will hopefully not arise.--84.188.172.180 18:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

col: Shilluk
Hello, i have a question. In the "Collective language codes" section there's the line "col Shilluk language".

But Shilluk is a language not "languages" (Shilluk language), so it can't be a collective language. And its code is "shk", not "col", and Shilluk has only a 639-3 code, see: List of ISO 639-2 codes, Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: shk, at SIL, ISO 639 Code Tables /S, at SIL

"col" = Columbia-Wenatchi, and also has just a 639-3 code (Columbia-Moses language), so it's also not a collective language (see also: ISO 639 Code Tables /C, at SIL, Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: col, at SIL).

And both (shk/Shilluk & col/ColWen) are missing from the official code lists of ISO 639-2 & 639-5 (see: Codes arranged alphabetically by alpha-3/ISO 639-2 Code, ISO 639-5 codes ordered by Identifier; also: List of ISO 639-2 codes & List of ISO 639-5 codes)

So i think it is maybe a mistake. Or not? Thanks for the answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ELVe (talk • contribs) 08:27, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Proto-languages
What ISO are of Proto-Baltic, Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic?--Ed1974LT (talk) 18:30, 20 August 2016 (UTC)