Workshop on Identifying Codes for Languages
(in association with the 9^th Conference on Oceanic Linguistics)

Saturday, February 9 2013

Newcastle, Australia

Invited speakers: TBA

URL: users.monash.edu.au/~smusgrav/language-code-workshop

The three letter codes standardised as ISO639-3 are widely used in linguistics and language technology, but there are unresolved questions as to the appropriateness and applicability of the ISO model to the problem of identifying languages and language varieties. The purpose of this workshop is to enable discussion of issues relating to this problem, with input from a group of scholars with extensive practical experience of the difficulties of identifying language varieties within one language family and one geographic region (although we certainly do not wish to rule out the participation of non-Oceanists).

Some of the questions which we anticipate will occupy the meeting are:

i) To what extent is it possible to compromise between the need for stable identifiers (which enable interoperability of digital resources) and the dynamic nature of language use and associated changes in varieties?

ii) What is the appropriate level of granularity to use in identifying linguistic varieties? Would a system which recognises hierarchical organisation be appropriate? (ISO639-5 already provides this to some extent for language families.)

iii) Are the processes in place for administering identifying codes suitable? Could they be improved, and if so, in what ways?

Call for papers:

There will be a limited number of slots for submitted presentations in the workshop. We invite the submission of abstracts of up to 250 words related to the questions listed above, as well as any other topic relevant to the theme of the workshop. We especially encourage the submission of abstracts which bring practical experience with language varieties to bear on the issues being discussed.

Organisers: Simon Musgrave (Monash University) [Simon.Musgrave@monash.edu]

Linda Barwick (University of Sydney and PARADISEC)

Michael Walsh (University of Sydney)

This workshop is supported financially by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS).