Nicholas Bodley <nbodley at speakeasy dot net> wrote:

> Definitely non-authoritative:
> Try Googling on [language codes]. ISO 639 is one standard.

Very definitely non-authoritative. Many outdated and inaccurately
transcribed copies of the ISO 639 code lists exist on the Web. Best to
go to the source:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/

> Internet IP addresses use two-letter codes for nations, such as .uk.
> .ie, .de, .jp, .es, etc. These are probably top-level domains.

These are root elements of the ccTLD (country-code top-level domain)
system. They are *almost* the same as ISO 3166-1 country codes: they
use ".uk" for the United Kingdom instead of ".gb", and use some ISO
3166-1 reserved code elements such as ".gg" for Guernsey and ".je" for
Jersey. Again, best to go to the source:
http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm

> They seem to differ sometimes from the elliptical black-on-white
> nation identifiers seen on some private cars, such as "GB"; iirc, they
> come from Formula 1 Grand Prix racing.

They come from the United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic of 1949
and 1968. Nothing like going to the source:
http://untreaty.un.org/ENGLISH/bible/englishinternetbible/partI/chapterXI/subchapB/treaty1.asp
http://untreaty.un.org/ENGLISH/bible/englishinternetbible/partI/chapterXI/subchapB/treaty145.asp
http://www.unece.org/trans/doc/2003/wp1/disting-signs-5-2003.pdf

See also Gwillim Law's page at http://www.statoids.com/wab.html. While
not official, it is well-researched and fairly comprehensive.

> Related, probably: The distinction between locale, such as Paraguay,
> and language, such as Spanish and Guaraní, which, iirc, is widely
> spoken in Paraguay. People who install Linux, especially outside the
> USA, are aware of these.

Probably most of the list is aware of these, certainly those whose
interest is computer-related (as opposed to, say, Peter Daniels). Try
reading:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt
http://www.i18nguy.com/locales/locale-resources.html
http://www.unicode.org/cldr/


-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/