[Summary]
The first standard to identify languages was ISO 639-1, adopted by
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1988
as a set of two-letter identifiers. The ISO 639-2 standard
followed in 1998 as a set of three-letter codes identifying 400
languages. Published by SIL International, the Ethnologue, an
encyclopedic catalog of living languages, had also developed its
own three-letter codes in its database since 1971, with their
inclusion in the publication itself since 1984 (10th edition). ISO
639-2 quickly became outdated. In 2002, at the invitation of the
International Organization for Standardization, SIL International
prepared a new standard that reconciled the complete set of
identifiers used in the Ethnologue with the identifiers already in
use in ISO 639-2, as well as identifiers developed by the Linguist
List to handle ancient and constructed languages. Published in
2007, the ISO 639-3 standard provided three-letter codes for
identifying 7,589 languages. SIL International was named the
registration authority for the inventory of language identifiers.
***
Published in 2007, the ISO 639-3 standard provided three-letter
codes for identifying 7,589 languages.
The first standard to identify languages was ISO 639-1, adopted by
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1988
as a set of two-letter language identifiers.
The ISO 639-2 standard followed in 1998 as a set of three-letter
codes identifying 400 languages. The standard was a convergence of
ISO 639-1 and the ANSI Z39.53 standard (ANSI: American National
Standards Institute). The ANSI standard corresponded to the MARC
(Machine Readable Cataloging) language codes, a set of three-
letter identifiers developed by the library community and adopted
as an American National Standard in 1987.
Published by SIL International, the Ethnologue, an encyclopedic
catalog of living languages, had also developed its own three-
letter codes in its database since 1971, with the inclusion in the
encyclopedia itself from the 10th edition (1984) onwards.
ISO 639-2 quickly became insufficient because of the small number
of languages it could handle. In 2002, at the invitation of the
International Organization for Standardization, SIL International
prepared a new standard that reconciled the complete set of codes
used in the Ethnologue with the codes already in use in ISO 639-2,
as well as codes developed by the Linguist List -- a main
distribution list for linguists -- to handle ancient and
constructed languages.
Approved in 2006 and published in 2007, the ISO 639-3 standard
provided three-letter codes for identifying 7,589 languages, with
a list of languages as complete as possible, living and extinct,
ancient and reconstructed, major and minor, and written and
unwritten. SIL International was named the registration authority
for the inventory of language identifiers, and administers the
annual cycle for changes and updates.