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ISO 12620 — Data Category Registry

What this standard is

ISO 12620 provides a data category registry — a controlled, standardized vocabulary of metadata fields and values used to describe terminology data. Published in 2009, it is the reference dictionary that TBX (ISO 30042) draws from to populate its elements and attributes.

The standard defines:

  • Data categories — named fields for terminology metadata (e.g., partOfSpeech, grammaticalGender, termType)
  • Value lists — the allowed values for each data category (e.g., noun, verb, adjective for partOfSpeech)
  • Open vs. closed value sets — some categories allow user-defined extensions, others are fixed
  • DatCatInfo declarations — machine-readable descriptions of each data category

Key concept: data categories vs. free text

Without ISO 12620, every terminology system invents its own field names and value vocabularies. System A calls it “Part of Speech”; System B calls it “Grammar”; System C calls it “POS” — and their value lists differ too. ISO 12620 eliminates this ambiguity by providing a single, normative registry that everyone references.

How Glossarist implements it

Term type classification

The most prominent ISO 12620 contribution to Glossarist is the term type vocabulary. Every designation in Glossarist can carry a term_type field whose value must come from the ISO 12620 / TBX registry. The classification applies across all seven designation types:

UML class diagram of the Designation type hierarchy
Designation type hierarchy. The seven designation types (expression, abbreviation, symbol, letter_symbol, graphical_symbol, prefix, suffix) all inherit the term_type field, which classifies each designation using the ISO 12620 data category registry.
CategoryTerm type values
Orthographic / structuralfull_form, abbreviation, acronym, initialism, clipped_term, short_form, transliterated_form, transcribed_form, truncation, variant
Symbolic / formulaicsymbol, formula, equation, logical_expression, mathematical_expression, reference_symbol, figure_symbol, graphic_symbol, letter_symbol, roman_numeral
Usage / provenancecode, common_name, entry_term, internationalism, international_scientific_term, part_number, phrase, phraseological_unit, scientific_name, shortcut, sku, standard_text, synonym, synonymous_phrase

See Term Types for the full taxonomy with definitions.

Part of speech

ISO 12620 defines a closed list of parts of speech. Glossarist implements this via grammar_info.part_of_speech:

ISO 12620 valueGlossarist value
nounnoun
verbverb
adjectiveadjective
adverbadverb
prepositionpreposition
participleparticiple
otherother

Grammatical number

ISO 12620 valueGlossarist value
singularsingular
dualdual
pluralplural

Grammatical gender

ISO 12620 valueGlossarist value
masculinemasculine
femininefeminine
neuterneuter
commoncommon (for languages that combine m/f)

Source status

ISO 12620 / TBX defines how a source relates to the entry it documents. Glossarist implements these as the ConceptSource.status field. Each describes how the entry’s content relates to the cited source:

StatusMeaning
identicalContent is identical to what appears in the source
modifiedContent has been modified from the source
restyledContent has been restyled (formatting changes only)
context_addedAdditional context has been added to the source content
generalisationContent is a generalisation of the source content
specialisationContent is a specialisation of the source content
unspecifiedThe relationship to the source is unspecified
similarContent is similar but not identical to the source
relatedContent is related to the source but not derived from it
not_equalContent explicitly differs from the source

The optional modification field on each ConceptSource provides a free-text description of what changed relative to the original.

Lexical relationships

ISO 12620 / TBX defines two lexical relationship types that are language-specific:

  • homograph — same spelling, different meaning (intra-language)
  • false_friend — similar spelling across languages but different meaning (cross-language)

These are implemented in Glossarist at the LocalizedConcept level because they only exist within or between specific languages — a concept that is a false friend in French may not be one in German.

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