Yes there is a standard(actually a few).
you can look into international phone codes commonly referred to as IBM
counrty codes.  also you can look into the ISO Standard 3166(contains names
and abbreviations)  for countries and ISO Standard 639 for languages(usually
two characters with a third added for sublanguages).
much of this information is retrievable from the internet or i'm sure there
may be a librarian out here with the text at their fingertips.

Gary Acord
Acord Information Management
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-----Original Message-----
From:   Museum discussion list  On Behalf Of Susan Hazan, The Ruth Youth Wing,
Jerusalem
Sent:   Sunday, June 01, 1997 2:18 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Accession numbers, Ethnography and Country codes.

I am interested in finding a uniformed method (maybe refered to in a
bibilography) of assigning catalogue numbers to an ethnography collection.
These numbers will serve us in our newly acquired database.  I have found
particular difficulties when dealing with the Eastern European countries
who have been over-run again and again.  Does a standard list of codes
denoting countries exist?