belter creole has two language codes, āqbcā and āart-x-belterā. but how?
āqbcā is from the āreserved for local useā area (āqaaā through āqtzā) of the three-letter isoĀ 639-3 language codes, like āengā for english, ācmnā for mandarin chinese, or āckbā for sorani. conlang code registry is a project to informally coordinate āassignmentsā in this area for conlangs, and thatās why belter creole is āqbcā. who knows, maybe someday it will transcend the expanse (2015) and upgrade to a standard code, like toki pona did from āqtkā to ātokā.
this reminds me of cambridge g-rin, a project to informally coordinate āassignmentsā in the rfc 1918 address spaces, that is, private ipv4 addresses like 10.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.1. in both cases, a public registry that allows anyone who knows about it to avoid taking someone elseās spot.
āart-x-belterā starts with āartā, the isoĀ 639-3 code for āartificial languagesā. the ā-x-belterā part uses an ietf extension to those codes (bcp 47) that lets you add āprivate-useā extra details, and thatās why belter creole is āart-x-belterā. internet standards love āx-ā for private use. see also http headers like āX-Real-IPā or āX-Forwarded-Forā, or mime headers like āX-Spam-Scoreā.
by the way, another language code with private-use extra details is in the html spec, of all places. thanks hixie :)
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="split index" lang=en-US-x-hixie>
<script src=/link-fixup.js defer=""></script>
<meta charset=utf-8>
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