ISO criteria for defining new languages
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The ISO has become the de facto source for language classification for most information-management and software systems. Its central standard for identifying languages is ISO 639, which comprises two current standards (639-1 and 639-2) and a proposed standard (639-3). The first two standards aim to cover the most important languages for archiving and classifying written documents; while the third hopes to fill in any remaining gaps and classify all world languages of any size. A body of eight work towards consensus on each vote.
- NB: there are other standards bodies which address language classification and tagging, with less formailty and generally less uniform results. See also the IANA list of language-tags.
Criteria for adding new languages to ISO 639 Standards[edit]
ISO 639-1 (two-letter codes)[edit]
for languages most frequently useful in terminology, lexicography and linguistics, and most frequently represented in [historical] world literature.
Criteria for new language requests (from the standard, emphasis added)
- See ISO 639-2 criteria [below]. Any language request must also satisfy the requirements for ISO 639-2, as that list is a superset of ISO 639-1.
- Documentation : a significant body of documents, in both common and specialized language.
- - A significant body of existing documents (specialized texts, such as college or university textbooks, technical documentation manuals, specialized journals, subject-field related books, etc.) written in specialized languages
- - A number of existing terminologies in various subject fields (e.g. technical dictionaries, specialized glossaries, vocabularies, etc. in printed or electronic form)
- Recommendation by some organization
- A recommendation and support of a specialized authority (such as a standards organization, governmental body, linguistic institution, or cultural organization)
- Other considerations
- - the number of speakers of the language community
- - the recognized status of the language in one or more countries
- - the support of the request by one or more official bodies
ISO 639-2 (three-letter codes)[edit]
designed to supplement ISO 639.1, including language collections, and smaller languages which are also useful in terminology and bibliography.
Criteria for new language requests (from the standard, emphasis added)
- Documentation: At least 50 separate documents (but see below)
- The request for a new language code shall include evidence that one agency holds 50 different documents in the language or that five agencies hold a total of 50 different documents among them in the language. Documents include all forms of material and is not limited to text.
- Collective codes
- If the documentation criteria above are not met, a language may still be assigned a new or existing collective language code. The words languages or other as part of a language name indicates that a language code is a collective one.
- Dialects: on a case-by-case basis
- A dialect of a language is usually represented by the same language code as that used for the language. If the language is assigned to a collective language code, the dialect is assigned to the same collective language code. The difference between dialects and languages will be decided on a case-by-case basis.
- Scripts: one per language code
- A single language code is normally provided for a language even [when] the language is written in more than one script. ISO DIS 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, is under development.
- Orthography: one per language code
- A language using more than one orthography is not given multiple language codes.