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From:  Valerie Sutton
Date:  Fri Jun 8, 2001  9:18 pm
Subject:  QUESTION: International computer code for Sign Languages


SignWriting List
June 8, 2001

QUESTION:
What are the three letters that stand for Brazilian Sign Language?

ANSWER:
Of course, in everyday language, the term LIBRAS is the proper name
of Brazilian Sign Language.

But when it comes to computer abbreviations...As you know, all the
names of countries and languages are abbreviated further. For
example, the country code for Brazil, is called BR in computers. The
country code for the United States is US, and so forth....

So our organization has worked with Michael Everson and the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)...to find a new
and shorter coding for the names of signed languages around the world
(for computer programs).

You can read about this on this web page:

International Standardization of Sign Language Codes
https://www.egt.ie/standards/iso639/sgn.html

also read:
https://www.SignWriting.org/forums/software/unicode/unicod01.html

Michael Everson is really doing us a service by standardizing this
for the world. The old SIL abbreviations, (from my perspective
anyway), are not nearly as easy to understand.

What is the logic behind the coding?

Essentially, you take the abbreviation for sign:

sgn

and attach it to the known abbreviation for the country, in your case:

BR

So "sgn-BR" means the naturally used native signed language of the
country of BR, and "sgn-DK" means the naturally used native signed
language of the country of Denmark etc.

Val ;-)

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