ISO 639-3 is an international standard for
language codes. It extends the
ISO 639-2 alpha-3 codes with an aim to cover all known
natural languages. The standard was published by ISO on
5 February 2007[1].
It's intended for use in a wide range of applications, in particular computer systems where many languages need to be supported. It provides an enumeration of languages as complete as possible, including living and extinct, ancient and constructed, major and minor, written and unwritten.<ref name="ISO status" />
It is a superset of
ISO 639-1 and of the individual languages in
ISO 639-2. ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 focused on major languages, most frequently represented in the total body of the world's literature. Since ISO 639-2 also includes language collections, whereas Part 3 does not, ISO 639-3 is not a superset of ISO 639-2. Where B and T codes exist in ISO 639-2, it uses the T-codes.
Examples:
| language | 639-1 | 639-2 (B/T) | type | 639-3 |
| English | en | eng | individual | eng |
| German | de | ger/deu | individual | deu |
| Arabic | ar | ara | macro | arb + several others |
| Minnan | (zh-min-nan) | | individual | nan |
The final standard contains 7589 entries
[2]. The inventory of languages is based on a number of sources including: the individual languages contained in 639-2, modern languages from the
Ethnologue 15th edition, historic varieties, ancient languages and
artificial languages from
Anthony Aristar at the
Linguist List as well as languages recommended within a public commenting period.
A transition from ISO 639-1 could be done with
List of ISO 639-1 codes.
Code space
Since the code is three-letter alphabetic, one upper bound for the number of languages that can be represented is 26 × 26 × 26 = 17576. Since ISO 639-2 defines special codes (2), a reserved range (520) and B-only codes (23), 545 codes cannot be used in part 3. Therefore a lower upper bound is 17576 - 545 = 17032.
The upper bound gets even lower if one subtracts the language collections defined in 639-2 and the ones yet to be defined in ISO 639-5.
Macrolanguages
There are 56 languages in ISO 639-2 which are considered, for the purposes of the standard, to be "macrolanguages" in 639-3
[3].
Some of these macrolanguages had no individual language as defined by 639-3 in ISO 639-2, e.g. 'ara'. Others like 'nor' (Norwegian) had their two individual parts ('nno' (Nynorsk), 'nob' (Bokmål)) already in 639-2.
That means some languages (e.g. 'arb') that were considered by ISO 639-2 to be dialects of one language ('ara') are now in ISO 639-3 in certain contexts considered to be individual languages themselves.
This is an attempt to deal with varieties that may be linguistically distinct from each other, but are treated by their speakers as two forms of the same language, e.g. in cases of
diglossia.
For example:
See
[4] for the complete list.
Collective languages
Some ISO 639-2 codes that are commonly used for languages do not precisely represent a particular language or some related languages (as the above macrolanguages). They are regarded as collective languages (or collectives)
[5] and are excluded from ISO 639-3.
- See also:
History
Stages
[1]:
- 2006-07-14 FDIS 50.00
- 2007-02-05 60.60
See also
References
External links
ISO 639 is the set of international standards that lists short codes for language names.
ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which two parts have been approved and a third part that is in the final approval (FDIS) stage. The other parts are works in progress.
..... Click the link for more information.
A language code is a code that assigns letters or numbers as identifiers for languages. Often used language codes include those of ISO 639, particularly ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2. Internet standards commonly use IETF language tags, which are based on ISO 639.
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ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as "Alpha-3" codes. There are 464 language codes in the list.
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In the philosophy of language, a natural language (or ordinary language) is a language that is spoken, written, or signed (visually or tactilely) by humans for general-purpose communication, as distinguished from formal languages (such as computer-programming
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See Language (journal) for the linguistics journal.
A
language is a system of symbols and the rules used to manipulate them.
Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.
..... Click the link for more information. February 5 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.
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ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. It consists of 136 two-letter codes used to identify the world's major languages. These codes are a useful international shorthand for indicating languages.
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ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as "Alpha-3" codes. There are 464 language codes in the list.
..... Click the link for more information.
Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: 閩南語; Pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ
..... Click the link for more information.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in
..... Click the link for more information.
A constructed or artificial language — known colloquially/informally as a conlang — is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been devised by an individual or group, instead of having naturally evolved as part of a culture.
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Anthony Manuel Rodrigues Aristar (born in Cape Town, South Africa, 1948) is a linguist, the founder of the LINGUIST List, the most important linguistic resource on the web [1] , and currently a professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University.
..... Click the link for more information.
The LINGUIST List is the major on-line resource for the academic field of linguistics. It was founded by Anthony Aristar in early 1990 at the University of Western Australia.
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<noinclude>ISO 639 has three code lists. The following is a list of ISO 639-1 language codes, including the ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 codes where they exist. The data is sorted by 639-1 code.
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aka is the ISO 639-3 language code for Akan. Its ISO 639-1 code is
ak. There are 2 individual language codes assigned:
- fat — Fanti
- twi — Twi
ara
ara ..... Click the link for more information. In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where, in a given society, there are two (often closely-related) languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue.
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ISO 639 is the set of international standards that lists short codes for language names.
ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which two parts have been approved and a third part that is in the final approval (FDIS) stage. The other parts are works in progress.
..... Click the link for more information.
The following is a complete overview of all codes in the draft code table for ISO/FDIS 639-3. A normative list of current ISO 639-3 identifiers is available for download from the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Web site.
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