Re: AW: Re: Intlwiki-l Alsatian (for Steve)

On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Dufrenoy, Alexis wrote:
>
> >>I note that the term used on ethnologue is ALEMANNISCH -- so maybe am.wiki
> >>
> >or al.wiki.
> >
> If we use "am" there could be rioting in the streets of Addis Ababa.
>  "al" is available since Albanian uses "sq"
>
> Using three letter codes in circumstances where we must invent our own
> seems preferable.  Currently, only 3 codes beginning with "al" are in
> use: "alb" as an alternative to "sqi" for Albanian, "ale" for Aleut, and
> "alg" for Algonquian languages in general.  The rest are available.
>  "als" sounds like a good idea.  If we are forward looking, any
> alemannic language that wants a wikipedia could also use a 3-letter code
> beginning with "al".  The Ethnologue code for Alemmanisch is "GSW" but
> that's not helpful at all.

I agree that 3-letter codes would be a better idea for uncoded languages
than 2-letter ones. There is less chance that they are going to be created
in the future, and less chance that if they are created, it is for a language
that we want a Wikipedia for.

Andre Engels