This facility searches all data linked to the "Composite" Trees found in the MultiTree database. Composite trees are trees which define the hypotheses about language relationships which are most widely (though not universally) accepted by linguists. Most of these languages have unique ISO 639-3 codes, which is a standard set originally defined by Ethnologue, with supplemental codes for ancient languages defined by The LINGUIST List. Where no ISO 639-3 codes exist, local use codes have been defined by The LINGUIST List.
The amount of information available in the MultiTree database is much larger than the Composite trees contain. Thus when you click on a search result, you will be shown a page with information which occur in alternative hypotheses. You should be aware that these will sometimes be hypotheses that very few linguists accept, for the MultiTree system is designed to show as many hypotheses as possible, even those which are no longer accepted by linguists.
Should your search return nothing, there may still be information in the MultiTree database: it may just not appear in a Composite tree. We suggest, therefore, that you try the full MultiTree database search facility as well.
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What is an ISO 639-3 code?
ISO is an abbreviation for International Organization for Standardization, and all standards it has approved have the ISO prefix. ISO 639-3 is thus the ISO standard which uniquely identifies all of the world's languages, including those that are ancient, extinct, historic and constructed, by 3-letter codes. These codes are always alphabetic, and are always in lower case. They are used in fields such as linguistics, lexicography, and computerized information systems. The vast majority of these codes were developed by the Summer Institute of Linguistics for the Ethnologue, an extensive catalog of the world's languages. The remainder -- which code mainly ancient and historic languages -- were defined by The LINGUIST List.
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/
What is a local use code?
A certain subset of codes, qaa through qtz, has been designated for "local use." This means that the code can be used to uniquely identify a language which does not appear in the standard. Since the number of local use codes is limited, and the number of languages which LINGUIST has in its database is very large, these local use codes have been expanded by numerals. A local use code may eventually become incorporated into the standard as more research is done, but if it is, its code will change, for codes in the local use range can never be used in the standard. Local use codes should never be used away from the site they originate on.
What are the other codes I am seeing?
Because the ISO 639-3 standard only accommodates languages, additional private use codes have been created to represent subgroups and dialects. A dialect code is formed from the first three letters of its parent language followed by a dash and an additional three letters, e.g . xyz-abc Subgroup codes are four letters, e.g abcd.
