Code Space
Since the code is three-letter alphabetic, one upper bound for the number of languages that can be represented is 26 × 26 × 26 = 17576. Since ISO 639-2 defines special codes (4), a reserved range (520) and B-only codes (23), 547 codes cannot be used in part 3. Therefore a lower upper bound is 17576 − 547 = 17030.
The upper bound gets even lower if one subtracts the language collections defined in 639-2 and the ones yet to be defined in ISO 639-5.
Read more about this topic: ISO 639-3
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