From 10646er@sesame.demon.co.uk Wed Nov 27 13:38:58 1996 Received: from sesame.demon.co.uk (sesame.demon.co.uk [158.152.125.29]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA09002 for ; Wed, 27 Nov 1996 13:36:50 +0100 Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 10:51:55 GMT From: 10646er@sesame.demon.co.uk (John Clews) Reply-To: 10646er@sesame.demon.co.uk Message-Id: <2257@sesame.demon.co.uk> To: khaisu@ugcs.caltech.edu, iso10646@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Cc: i18n@dkuug.dk, ken@digitas.harvard.edu Subject: Re: ISO 639 (Language Codes) update status X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Lines: 105 In message <329BDC19.5D6C@ugcs.caltech.edu> khaisu@ugcs.caltech.edu writes: > I was trying to keep track of what's going on with ISO 639-2. Now that > it is pushed aside, I am sad. 639-1 would not be able to contain all > the languages (if it ever intended to do so) for 26^2 = 676, and I > think that even with a definition of the strictest threshold, there > are more than 676 languages on this planet. > ... > Would anyone more familiar with the ongoings of ISO 639 (639-1 and > 639-2) kindly inform us the status of these standards? See my two emails (Subject: ISO 639 (Language Codes) and reality, 1 & 2) on the ISO10646 list for more accurate details of what is going on here under the auspices of ISO/TC46 committees. You may also be interested in the work of another committee of ISO/TC46 which is working on another language- and script-related issue: transliteration standards. Apologies to any who may have seen this information before and who may have seen this notice more than once. John Clews * * * * * * * * Transliteration standards I am the new chair of the International Organization for Standardization subcommittee responsible for transliteration (ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages). The new secretary (Evangelos Melagrakis from Greece) and I hope to make it far more visible and far more relevant to end users than it has been in the past. To enable this, an electronic mailing list for ISO/TC46/SC2 (tc46sc2@elot.gr) has now been set up by ELOT (the Greek national standards body). We hope this list will attract researchers and scientists who can add useful information which might assist in developing standards on the Conversion of Written Languages. We also hope to have an emphasis on issues of using computers to do appropriate transformations necessary in automated transliteration, and also look forward to having regular contact with those on this list who are interested in such issues. There are quite a few with an interest in transliteration in library catalogues on the list, but there are other potential users of transliteration too. People are now begining to realist that transliteration may have more indirect impact on other aspects of multilingual computing than they had previously realised. There are now over 200 subscribers to tc46sc2@elot.gr, from 38 countries and territories - one of the most international lists around. One major advantage of email is the ability to involve far more people in the development of a common purpose than were involved before, to get user feedback, and expert opinion from various sources. Subscribing to the mailing list for ISO/TC46/SC2 In order to join the list you should be actively involved in using transliteration systems, or in developing transliteration systems, and should be prepared to contribute to the list from time to time. If you meet these criteria, and wish to join the list, send an email to majordomo@elot.gr with this message in the body of the text: subscribe tc46sc2 your@email.address (but with your real email address replacing the string your@email.address). To find out further commands you can use, send the command "help" as the text of an email either to tc46sc2-request@elot.gr or to: majordomo@elot.gr To unsubscribe, send the command "unsubscribe" instead, omitting the "quotes" marks in both cases. This will tell you how to obtain copies of past messages etc., and other useful features. Once you are subscribed, you can send messages to tc46sc2@elot.gr and receive messages from other members of the list. Please reply where possible to the list as a whole, so that all can benefit: using the Group Reply function (pressing G on some email software) is the simplest way to achieve this. Other members will also be interested to see who else is joining the list, so it is useful to send a brief introduction (say, one or two short paragraphs) to tc46sc2@elot.gr at the outset, saying what languages, scripts and other things you are involved in. That is the most likely way to stimulate others to write on the subjects you are interested in! You should also inform your national standards body to express your interest in participating in this list. I can provide some information on details of your national member body of ISO, if you send me an email requesting this. I look forward to seeing new participants on this list. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else who may be interested in transliteration standardisation issues, and to send any queries about the list to me. Yours sincerely John Clews -- John Clews (Chairman of ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages) SESAME Computer Projects, 8 Avenue Rd. * email: Converse@sesame.demon.co.uk Harrogate, HG2 7PG, United Kingdom * telephone: +44 (0) 1423 888 432