ISO 639-6, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 6: Alpha-4 code for comprehensive coverage of language variants, is an international standard in the ISO 639

ISO 639

ISO 639 is a set of standards by the International Organization for Standardization that is concerned with representation of names for language and language groups....

 series, developed by ISO/TC 37/SC 2 (International Organization for Standardization

International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...

, Technical Committee 37, Subcommittee 2: Terminographical and lexicographical working methods). It contains four-letter codes that denote variants of languages. This allows to differentiate between, for example, historical (glvx) versus revived Manx

Manx language

Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, and as the Manks language, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, historically spoken by the Manx people. Only a small minority of the Island's population is fluent in the language, but a larger minority has some knowledge of it...

 (rvmx), while ISO 639-3

ISO 639-3

ISO 639-3:2007, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages. It extends the ISO 639-2...

 only includes glv for Manx.

The data supporting ISO 639-6 is being researched and compiled by GeoLang on behalf of the British Standards Institution (BSI). ISO 693-6 was published in 2009.

External links

• http://www.geolang.com
• http://www.bsi-global.com