[sword-devel] ISO language codes

[domcox]

Jamie writes:

> The Sword config file contains an ISO language code.  Is anyone 
> able to tell
> me what this gets used for (and more specifically, whether there 
> is any
> requirement as to whether this should be a 2-character code or a 
> 3-character
> one)?

I not have much knowledge of this, but after a quick look at the 
source code, I saw the ISO language code is used by the 
transliteration filter.

ISO language code is  also used by the Xapian search engine, I 
suppose we can't search Chinese or Hebrew or English texts the 
same way. See: https://xapian.org/docs/stemming.html

And if I recall correctly, ISO language code is used in Lucene 
searches by JSword.


> (In fact I see IANA now have a new registry of codes which 
> supersedes the
> 2-char and 3-char lists, but it looks as though this merely 
> mandates the use
> of the old 2-character codes where available, and 3-character 
> otherwise.)

Is there a benefit over the SIL database?

SIL International is the registration authority for ISO-639-3.

"SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of 
Linguistics) is a Christian non-profit organization, whose main 
purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially 
those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic 
knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into 
local languages, and aid minority language development."


-- Dom