Hi all,


The UN Group of Experts on Geographic Names (UNGEGN) list is rather more straightforward and unequivocal about which languages are "official" in each country (presumably based on information from UN member countries themselves)

It doesn't go  as deep as ISO lists - no mention of Frisian, or of status of three different variants Sámi in certain municipalities of Finnish Lapland, for that matter.


For our purposes, the UNGEGN list should be enough, and IMHO relevant for country names as for ISO is for their codes.


https://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/26th-gegn-docs/WP/WP54_UNGEGN%20WG%20Country%20Names%20Document%202011.pdf


UNGEGN website: https://unstats.un.org/UNSD/geoinfo/UNGEGN/default.html







From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap@NLnetLabs.nl>
Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2018 12:58 PM
To: gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Notes and Action Items - New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP Work Track 5 - 04 April 2018
 
Annebeth Lange writes:


 > Would a possibility be to include only the official language(s) of all
 > countries, or would that be too much as well? I agree with Javier that
 > UN Languages, plus the official language of the country is the easiest.
 > However, it is fairly restricted, as there are many languages in the
 > world used extensively by others, to take German and Portuguese as an
 > example.


At first sight this seems easy, but I'm afraid it is yet another can
of worms. One needs to define what "Official languages" means.

When the second Edition on of 3166-1 came out in 2006, a columns where
added which contains additional information. The description of this
column is (quoting ISO 3166-1-2006):

        - 9 (informative) The alpha-2 ISO 639 code element of each
            administrative language of the country (with a dash when the
            code element is missing);

        - 10 (informative) The alpha-3 (terminological version) ISO
             639 code element of each administrative language of the
             country (with a dash when the code element is missing);

The term "administrative language" is chosen because there don't seem
to be a list of official languages of a country available.

The path to such a list will be way more complicated then one hopes.
Here are some random problems:

        For the Netherlands, the ISO OBP lists in part 1 NLD (Dutch)
        only but for part 2 list for a subdivision Frisian as well.
        And as far as I know, Frisian can be used as official language
        under certain conditions (in court is one of them). The CIA
        handbook list a couple more as being used
        <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2098.html#nl>.
www.cia.gov
The Office of Public Affairs (OPA) is the single point of contact for all inquiries about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). We read every letter, fax, or e-mail we receive, and we will convey your comments to CIA officials outside OPA as appropriate.

        On the Government site I found an article stating that for the
        revision of the constitutions maybe it is time to say
        something about the language used
        <https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2010/02/12/dutch-language-enshrined-in-the-constitution>.

        For India, ISO lists two languages for part 1 (eng, hin), and
        part 2 just one (en) while the CIA fact book lists a 14
        official languages.

        The USA doesn't has an official language and there are regular
        heated debates whether there should be one.

I'm afraid that this will lead to yet another extensive discussion but
not a lot of results that can be used in the scope of this work track.

        jaap
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