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Copyright © The IETF Trust (2008).
This memo defines the procedure used to update the IANA Language Subtag Registry in conjunction with the publication of RFC 4646bis [RFC EDITOR NOTE: replace with actual RFC number], for use in forming tags for identifying languages. As an Internet-Draft, it also contained a complete replacement of the contents of the Registry to be used by IANA in updating it. To prevent confusion, this material was removed before publication.
1.
Introduction
2.
Updating the Registry
2.1.
Starting Point
2.2.
New Language Subtags
2.3.
Modified Language Subtags
2.4.
New Region Subtags
2.5.
Grandfathered and Redundant Tags
2.6.
Additional Changes
3.
Updated Registry Contents
4.
Security Considerations
5.
IANA Considerations
6.
Changes
7.
References
7.1.
Normative References
7.2.
Informative References
Appendix A.
Acknowledgements
§
Author's Address
§
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements
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[RFC4646] (Phillips, A. and M. Davis, “Tags for Identifying Languages,” September 2006.) provided for a Language Subtag Registry and described its format. The initial contents of the Registry and rules for determining them were specified in [RFC4645] (Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” September 2006.).
[draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.) expands on [RFC4646] (Phillips, A. and M. Davis, “Tags for Identifying Languages,” September 2006.) by adding support for approximately 7,200 language subtags based on [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) alpha-3 code elements, and seven region subtags based on [ISO3166‑1] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 3166-1:2006. Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1: Country codes,” November 2006.) exceptionally reserved code elements. This memo describes the process of updating the Registry to include these additional subtags, and to make secondary changes to the Registry that result from adding the new subtags.
In its initial phase as an Internet-Draft, this memo also contained a complete replacement of the contents of the Language Subtag Registry to be used by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) in updating it. This content was deleted from this memo prior to publication as an RFC.
The format of the Language Subtag Registry, and the definition and intended purpose of each of the fields, are described in [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.).
The Registry is expected to change over time, as new subtags are registered and existing subtags are modified or deprecated. The process of updating the Registry is described in Section 3 of [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.). In its Internet-Draft phase, this memo did not define the permanent contents of the Registry and should not be represented as having done so.
Many of the subtags defined in the Language Subtag Registry are based on code elements defined in [ISO639‑1] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-1:2002. Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 1: Alpha-2 code,” 2002.), [ISO639‑2] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-2:1998. Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 code, first edition,” 1998.), [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.), [ISO3166‑1] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 3166-1:2006. Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1: Country codes,” November 2006.), [ISO15924] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 15924:2004. Information and documentation -- Codes for the representation of names of scripts,” January 2004.), and [UN_M.49] (Statistics Division, United Nations, “Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use,” June 1999.). The Registry is not a mirror of the code lists defined by these standards and should not be used as one.
The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] (Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,” March 1997.).
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This section describes the process for determining the updated contents of the Language Subtag Registry.
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The version of the Language Subtag Registry that was current at the time of IESG approval of this memo served as the starting point for this update. This version was created according to the process described in [RFC4645] (Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” September 2006.) and maintained according to the process described in [RFC4646] (Phillips, A. and M. Davis, “Tags for Identifying Languages,” September 2006.).
The source data for [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) used for this update consisted of three files, available from the official site of the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority. [RFC EDITOR NOTE: these files may be updated before approval of this memo.]
Language code elements that were already retired in [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) prior to IESG approval of this memo were not listed in these files, and consequently were not considered in this update.
The values of the File-Date field, the Added date for each new subtag record, and the Deprecated date for each existing grandfathered or redundant tag deprecated by this update are set to a date as near as practical to the date of IESG approval of this memo. [RFC EDITOR NOTE: these dates are initially set to 2029-09-09 for easy recognition, and MUST be updated during AUTH48.]
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For each language in [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) that was not already represented by a language subtag in the Language Subtag Registry, a new subtag was added to the Registry, using the [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) code element as the value for the Subtag field and each of the non-inverted [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) names as a separate Description field. The [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) reference name was represented by the first Description field.
If the language was encompassed by a macrolanguage, as determined by [iso‑639‑3‑macrolanguages_20080116] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3 Macrolanguage Mappings,” January 2008.), a Macrolanguage field was added for the encompassed language, with a value equal to the subtag of the macrolanguage.
All subtags were added to the Registry maintaining alphabetical order within each type of subtag: all 2-letter “language” subtags first, then all 3-letter “language” subtags. Some existing records were moved to ensure this order.
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For each language in [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) that was already represented by a language subtag in the Language Subtag Registry, Description fields were added as necessary to reflect all non-inverted names listed for that language in [iso‑639‑3_Name_Index_20080114] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3 Language Names Index,” January 2008.). Any existing Description fields reflecting inverted names were removed. The order of Description fields was adjusted to ensure that the reference name from [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) was listed first, followed by other names from [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) in the order presented by that standard, followed by any other names already existing in the Registry. In some cases this resulted in a reordering of Description fields for existing entries, even when no new values were added.
For each language that was encompassed by a macrolanguage in [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.), a Macrolanguage field was added, with a value equal to the subtag of the macrolanguage.
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[draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.) expands the scope of region subtags by adding subtags based on code elements defined as “exceptionally reserved” in [ISO3166‑1] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 3166-1:2006. Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1: Country codes,” November 2006.). These code elements are reserved by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency “at the request of national ISO member bodies, governments and international organizations.” At the time of IESG approval of this memo, ISO 3166/MA had defined nine exceptionally reserved code elements, all of which were added to the Language Subtag Registry except for the following:
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As stated in [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.), “grandfathered” and “redundant” tags are complete tags in the Language Subtag Registry that were registered under [RFC1766] (Alvestrand, H., “Tags for the Identification of Languages,” March 1995.) or [RFC3066] (Alvestrand, H., “Tags for the Identification of Languages,” January 2001.) and remain valid. Grandfathered tags cannot be generated from a valid combination of subtags, while redundant tags can be.
Under certain conditions, registration of a subtag under [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.) may cause a grandfathered tag to be reclassified as redundant. It may also enable the creation of a generative tag with the same meaning as a grandfathered or redundant tag; in that case, the grandfathered or redundant tag is marked as Deprecated, and the generative tag (including the new subtag) becomes its Preferred-Value.
As a result of adding the new subtags in this update, the following grandfathered tags were deprecated, with the indicated generative tag serving as the Preferred-Value:
i-ami (Preferred-Value: ami)
i-bnn (Preferred-Value: bnn)
i-pwn (Preferred-Value: pwn)
i-tao (Preferred-Value: tao)
i-tay (Preferred-Value: tay)
i-tsu (Preferred-Value: tsu)
zh-cmn (Preferred-Value: cmn)
zh-cmn-Hans (Preferred-Value: cmn-Hans)
zh-cmn-Hant (Preferred-Value: cmn-Hant)
zh-gan (Preferred-Value: gan)
zh-hakka (Preferred-Value: hak)
zh-min (no Preferred-Value; see below)
zh-min-nan (Preferred-Value: nan)
zh-wuu (Preferred-Value: wuu)
zh-xiang (Preferred-Value: hns)
The tag “zh-min”, originally registered under [RFC1766] (Alvestrand, H., “Tags for the Identification of Languages,” March 1995.), is a special case: it represents a small class of Chinese languages, but is not a true macrolanguage. The string “min” could not ever be used to tag these languages since the [ISO639‑3] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007.) code element “min” is assigned to an individual language (Minangkabau) that is not related to Chinese (“zh”). Because it is not believed to represent a useful linguistic entity for tagging purposes, it was deprecated without a Preferred-Value.
The following grandfathered and redundant sign-language tags were deprecated, with the indicated generative tag serving as the Preferred-Value:
sgn-BE-fr (Preferred-Value: sfb)
sgn-BE-nl (Preferred-Value: vgt)
sgn-BR (Preferred-Value: bzs)
sgn-CH-de (Preferred-Value: sgg)
sgn-CO (Preferred-Value: csn)
sgn-DE (Preferred-Value: gsg)
sgn-DK (Preferred-Value: dsl)
sgn-ES (Preferred-Value: ssp)
sgn-FR (Preferred-Value: fsl)
sgn-GB (Preferred-Value: bfi)
sgn-GR (Preferred-Value: gss)
sgn-IE (Preferred-Value: isg)
sgn-IT (Preferred-Value: ise)
sgn-JP (Preferred-Value: jsl)
sgn-MX (Preferred-Value: mfs)
sgn-NI (Preferred-Value: ncs)
sgn-NL (Preferred-Value: dse)
sgn-NO (Preferred-Value: nsl)
sgn-PT (Preferred-Value: psr)
sgn-SE (Preferred-Value: swl)
sgn-US (Preferred-Value: ase)
sgn-ZA (Preferred-Value: sfs)
No change was made to the Description field(s) for any of the grandfathered or redundant tags. For example, the redundant tag “sgn-US” continues to carry the Description “American Sign Language”. The sign language tags registered prior to [RFC4646] (Phillips, A. and M. Davis, “Tags for Identifying Languages,” September 2006.) remain an exception to the general principle that the meaning of a non-grandfathered tag can be derived from its component subtags.
In previous versions of the Registry, grandfathered tags that had been deprecated as a result of adding an ISO 639-based language subtag included a Comments field, with a value of the form “replaced by ISO code xxx”, where “xxx” represented the new language subtag. These comments duplicated the information contained within the Preferred-Value field, and were deleted as part of this update. No changes were made to other Comments fields.
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For consistency with the handling of alternative names in language subtags, Description fields for script subtags taken from [ISO15924] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 15924:2004. Information and documentation -- Codes for the representation of names of scripts,” January 2004.) that represent alternative names were converted to multiple Description fields. For example, the Description “Han (Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja)” was converted to four separate Description fields. Some Description fields for script subtags contained parenthetical material that was explanatory, rather than identifying alternative names; these fields were not altered.
This situation does not apply to region subtags taken from [ISO3166‑1] (International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 3166-1:2006. Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1: Country codes,” November 2006.) and [UN_M.49] (Statistics Division, United Nations, “Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use,” June 1999.) because those standards do not provide freely available alternative names for code elements.
The capitalization of the Subtag field for the redundant tag “yi-latn” was changed to “yi-Latn” for consistency with the capitalization conventions described in Section 2.1 of [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.).
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The remainder of this section specified the updated set of records for the Language Subtag Registry. This material was deleted before publication of this memo, to avoid any potential confusion with the Registry itself. The IANA Language Subtag Registry can be found at http://www.iana.org/numbers.html under “Language Tags”.
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For security considerations relevant to the Language Subtag Registry and the use of language tags, see [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.).
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In its initial phase as an Internet-Draft, this memo contained a complete replacement of the contents of the Language Subtag Registry to be used by IANA in updating it. As an RFC, it contains a pointer to the Registry, which is maintained by IANA. The Language Subtag Registry can be found at http://www.iana.org/numbers.html under “Language Tags”. For details on the procedures for the format and ongoing maintenance of this Registry, see [draft‑ietf‑ltru‑4646bis‑11] (Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007.).
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[Editor's Note: This section is provided for the convenience of reviewers and will be removed from the final document.]
This memo is a new work, not an incremental update of [RFC4645] (Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” September 2006.). The procedure for populating the original Language Subtag Registry, specified by the earlier [RFC4646] (Phillips, A. and M. Davis, “Tags for Identifying Languages,” September 2006.), is included by reference to [RFC4645] (Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” September 2006.). Therefore, no changes from [RFC4645] (Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” September 2006.) are listed in this section.
Changes between draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-03 and this version are:
Changes between draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-02 and draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-03 were:
Changes between draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-01 and draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-02 were:
Changes between draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-00 and draft-ietf-ltru-4645bis-01 were:
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| [ISO639-3] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3:2007. Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, first edition,” 2007. |
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,” BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997 (TXT, HTML, XML). |
| [draft-ietf-ltru-4646bis-11] | Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” December 2007. |
| [iso-639-3-macrolanguages_20080116] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3 Macrolanguage Mappings,” January 2008. |
| [iso-639-3_20080114] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3 Code Set,” January 2008. |
| [iso-639-3_Name_Index_20080114] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-3 Language Names Index,” January 2008. |
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| [ISO15924] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 15924:2004. Information and documentation -- Codes for the representation of names of scripts,” January 2004. |
| [ISO3166-1] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 3166-1:2006. Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1: Country codes,” November 2006. |
| [ISO639-1] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-1:2002. Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 1: Alpha-2 code,” 2002. |
| [ISO639-2] | International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 639-2:1998. Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 code, first edition,” 1998. |
| [RFC1766] | Alvestrand, H., “Tags for the Identification of Languages,” RFC 1766, March 1995 (TXT). |
| [RFC2629] | Rose, M., “Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML,” RFC 2629, June 1999 (TXT, HTML, XML). |
| [RFC3066] | Alvestrand, H., “Tags for the Identification of Languages,” RFC 3066, January 2001 (TXT). |
| [RFC4645] | Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” RFC 4645, September 2006 (TXT). |
| [RFC4646] | Phillips, A. and M. Davis, “Tags for Identifying Languages,” BCP 47, RFC 4646, September 2006 (TXT). |
| [UN_M.49] | Statistics Division, United Nations, “Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use,” UN Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use, Revision 4 (United Nations publication, Sales No. 98.XVII.9), June 1999. |
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This memo is a collaborative work of the Language Tag Registry Update (LTRU) Working Group. All of its members have made significant contributions to this memo and to its predecessor, [RFC4645] (Ewell, D., “Initial Language Subtag Registry,” September 2006.).
Specific contributions to this memo were made by Stéphane Bortzmeyer, John Cowan, Mark Davis, Martin Duerst, Frank Ellermann, Kent Karlsson, and Addison Phillips.
This document was written with the xml2rfc tool described in [RFC2629] (Rose, M., “Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML,” June 1999.).
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| Doug Ewell (editor) | |
| Consultant | |
| Email: | doug@ewellic.org |
| URI: | http://www.ewellic.org |
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