Recursive Semantic Anchoring in ISO 639:2023: A Structural Extension to ISO/TC 37 Frameworks
Abstract
ISO 639:2023 unifies the ISO language-code family and introduces contextual metadata, but it lacks a machine-native mechanism for handling dialectal drift and creole mixtures. We propose a formalisation of recursive semantic anchoring, attaching to every language entity a family of fixed-point operators that model bounded semantic drift via the relation , where is a drift vector in a latent semantic manifold. The base anchor recovers the canonical ISO 639:2023 identity, whereas marks the maximal drift state that triggers a deterministic fallback. Using category theory, we treat the operators as morphisms and drift vectors as arrows in a category . A functor maps every drifted object to its unique anchor and proves convergence. We provide an RDF/Turtle schema (\texttt{BaseLanguage}, \texttt{DriftedLanguage}, \texttt{ResolvedAnchor}) and worked examples -- e.g., (Standard Mandarin) versus (a colloquial variant), and for Nigerian Pidgin anchored to English. Experiments with transformer models show higher accuracy in language identification and translation on noisy or code-switched input when the -indices are used to guide fallback routing. The framework is compatible with ISO/TC 37 and provides an AI-tractable, drift-aware semantic layer for future standards.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2506.06870,
title = {Recursive Semantic Anchoring in ISO 639:2023: A Structural Extension to ISO/TC 37 Frameworks},
author = {Bugra Kilictas and Faruk Alpay},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.06870},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
21 pages, no figures. Includes formal proofs, RDF/Turtle ontology schema, {\phi}-index disambiguation cases, and evaluation of transformer-based AI models under semantic drift