ISO 639 has been amended. [Re: New team for Sinhala (si)]

[harshula <hash jayasolutions cjb net>]

Hi Everyone,

Good news, ISO 639 has been amended:

http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html

"Sinhala; Sinhalese singhalais sin si
Sinhalese; Sinhala singhalais sin si"

'Sinhala' has now been added, and 'Sinhalese' has been kept as a
variant.

Can we now use "Sinhala" instead of "Sinhalese" for the gnome
translations, please?

Regards,
Harshula


On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 21:48, harshula wrote:
> Hi Christopher,
> 
> That's perfectly reasonable. We'll keep the gnome-i18n group up to date
> on the status of the amendment. We'd appreciate it if the gnome-i18n
> group could keep us informed of any potentially permanent or difficult
> to alter situations with the translations. Thanks.
> 
> Regards,
> Harshula
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 08:17, Christopher Fynn wrote:
> > Harshula
> > 
> > An awful lot of other IT and internet standards reference ISO 639
> > as normative. That means whatever names are currently in ISO 639
> > are officially the names used in those standards as well - unless and 
> > until the name gets changed or amended in ISO 639 itself.
> > 
> > Although you the Sri Lanka Government &etc don't agree with what your
> > language is called in the current version of the ISO 639 standard,
> > and you have already submitted an official request to get it changed,
> > it is generally easier all the way round if you use the name that is
> > in the standard for now and switch as soon as the standard gets
> > changed. Snce ISO 639 codes and names are officially used referenced
> > in *many* other standards this affects everything that relies on those
> > standards as well.
> > 
> > International standards are of no use if people simply don't
> > follow them if they don't agree with them. You've done the
> > right thing by submitting an official request to get
> > "Sinhalese" changed to "Sinhala" - but, until that change
> > is ratified, it is probably best to follow what is there.
> > After all you will rightly expect everyone else to follow
> > the standard once it is changed.
> > 
> > Actually Sri Lanka is lucky in that your script has received the
> > correct name. There are cases of scripts encoded in ISO 10646
> > which users of the script object - to but since script and
> > character names cannot be changed in ISO 10646 - the users
> > are stuck with those names as long as that standard is used.
> > 
> > You are also lucky in that Sinhala is  an official language only
> > in Sri Lanka - In other cases where a language is official in more than 
> > one country (e.g. Bengali / Bangla in India and Bangladesh) and one 
> > party wants to change the name and the other doesn't, it is difficult to 
> > get a change made.
> > 
> > with all good wishes
> > 
> > - Chris
>