Re: core components analysis

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

Duane Nickull showed us a snippet of XML which might throw an
application off course which was looking for Belgium as the country of
origin:  expecting the French name "Belgique" as a trigger in the
<importéDe> element, it would have overlooked "Belgium."  Duane thinks
"that there is only so much we can do."

Dear Duane:

Please don't despair.  Because in ebXML we would never identify the
country of origin as either "Belgium" or "Belgique."  Rather, we would
insist on codification of countries using the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 code;
in this case, "BE" for Belgium  - see
http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/. Globalization depends on
us using every International standard we can get our hands on - which is
why I sound like a broken record talking about ISO standards and UN/ECE
recommendations.

Unfortunately, I neglected to note in my previous message one of the
most prominent West Teutonic languages - Netherlandic or Dutch (ISO
639-2/T nld) - an egregious omission considering it is English' closest
relative besides Frisian. It's interesting to note - politically if not
etymologically - that Flemish (Belgium Dutch) doesn't rate its own entry
in the ISO 639-2 code list. This reminds me of when I was at the ebXML
meeting in Belgium last May: after the meeting was over, a number of us
embarked on an excursion to Bruge for lace and chocolate.  We obtained
our train tickets and boarded a delightful ride. A while into the trip,
the banner sign overhead gave us instructions and stops; reading Flemish
as well as I could, it sounded a lot like "You be comin' on Brugge,"
which I guess was as good a translation as possible considering we
eventually came to Bruge.

Concerning whether the Salish, Mi'kmaq, Innuit and Haida languages are
included in ISO 639-2, you could look it up yourself at
http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html.  Indeed, Salishan
is ISO 639-2/T code sal, and Haida is hai.  The Mi'kmaq speak Micmac
(ISO 639-2/T mic). But the Innuit speak either Aleut (ISO 639-2/T ale)
or Inuktitut (ISO 639-2/T iku).  I think ISO 639-2 can probably handle
anything that you can throw at it, Duane!

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
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Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
+1 614 791-1600

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