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<title>Language code</title>

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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Language code</span></span>

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<p>A <b>language code</b> is a code that assigns letters or numbers as identifiers or classifiers for languages. These codes may be used to organize library collections or presentations of data, to choose the correct localizations and translations in computing, and as a shorthand designation for longer forms of language names.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Difficulties_of_classification">Difficulties of classification</h2></div>

<p>Language code schemes attempt to classify the complex world of human languages, <a href="Dialects" class="mw-redirect" title="Dialects">dialects</a>, and <a href="Variety_(linguistics)" title="Variety (linguistics)">variants</a>. Most schemes make some compromises between being general and being complete enough to support specific dialects.

</p><p>For example, <a href="Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a> is spoken in over 20 countries in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Spanish spoken in <a href="Mexican_Spanish" title="Mexican Spanish">Mexico</a> will be slightly different from Spanish spoken in <a href="Peruvian_Spanish" title="Peruvian Spanish">Peru</a>. Different regions of Mexico will have slightly different dialects and accents of Spanish. A language code scheme might group these all as "Spanish" for choosing a keyboard layout, most as "Spanish" for general usage, or separate each dialect to allow region-specific variation.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Common_schemes">Common schemes</h2></div>

<caption>List of some common language code schemes

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<th>Scheme

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<th>Notes

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<th>Examples for English

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<th>Examples for Spanish

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<td><i><a href="Glottolog" title="Glottolog">Glottolog</a></i> codes

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<td>Created for minority languages as a scientific alternative to the industrial ISO 639‑3 standard.<br>Intentionally do not resemble abbreviations.

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<td>

<ul><li><b>stan1293</b> – standard English</li>

<li><b>macr1271</b> – macro-English (Modern English, incl. creoles)</li>

<li><b>midd1317</b> – Middle English</li>

<li><b>merc1242</b> – Mercian (Middle to Modern English)</li>

<li><b>olde1238</b> – Old English</li>

<li><b>angl1265</b> – Anglian (Old to Modern English, incl. Scots)</li></ul>

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<ul><li><b>stan1288</b> – standard Spanish</li>

<li><b>olds1249</b> – Old Spanish</li>

<li><b>cast1243</b> – Castilic (Old to Modern Spanish, incl. Extremaduran and creoles)</li></ul>

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<td><a href="IETF_language_tag" title="IETF language tag">IETF language tag</a>

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<td>An IETF best practice, specified by BCP 47,<sup id="cite_ref-RFC_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-RFC-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> for language tags easy to parse by computer. The tag system is extensible to region, dialect, and private designations. It references ISO 639, ISO 3166 and ISO 15924.

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<ul><li><b>en</b> – English, as shortest ISO 639 code.</li>

<li><b>en-US</b> – English as used in the United States (US is the <a href="ISO_3166-1" title="ISO 3166-1">ISO 3166‑1</a> country code for the United States)<sup id="cite_ref-RFC_1-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-RFC-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></li></ul>

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<ul><li><b>es</b> – Spanish, as shortest ISO 639 code.</li>

<li><b>es-419</b> – Spanish appropriate for the Latin America and Caribbean region, using the <a href="UN_M.49" class="mw-redirect" title="UN M.49">UN M.49 region code</a></li></ul>

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<td>Two-letter code system made official in 2002, containing 136 codes at the time. Many systems use two-letter ISO 639‑1 codes supplemented by three-letter ISO 639‑2 codes when no two-letter code is applicable.

<p>There are 183 two-letter codes registered as of June 2021.

See: <a href="List_of_ISO_639_language_codes" title="List of ISO 639 language codes">List of ISO 639 language codes</a>

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<ul><li><b>es</b> – Spanish</li></ul>

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<td>Three-letter system of 464 codes.

<p>See: <a href="List_of_ISO_639-2_codes" title="List of ISO 639-2 codes">List of ISO 639-2 codes</a>

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</td>

<td>

<ul><li><b>eng</b> – three-letter code</li>

<li><b>enm</b> – Middle English, c. 1100–1500</li>

<li><b>ang</b> – Old English, c. 450–1100</li>

<li><b>cpe</b> – other English-based creoles and pidgins</li></ul>

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<td>

<ul><li><b>spa</b> – Spanish</li></ul>

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</td>

<td>An extension of ISO 639‑2 to cover all known, living or dead, spoken or written languages in 7,589 entries.

<p>See: <a href="List_of_ISO_639-3_codes" title="List of ISO 639-3 codes">List of ISO 639-3 codes</a>

</p>

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<td>

<ul><li><b>eng</b> – three-letter code</li>

<li><b>enm</b> – Middle English, c. 1100–1500</li>

<li><b>aig</b> – Antigua and Barbuda Creole English</li>

<li><b>ang</b> – Old English, c. 450–1100</li>

<li><b>svc</b> – Vincentian Creole English</li></ul>

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<td>

<ul><li><b>spa</b> – Spanish</li>

<li><b>spq</b> – Spanish, Loreto-Ucayali</li>

<li><b>ssp</b> – Spanish sign language</li></ul>

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<td><i><a href="Linguasphere_Register" class="mw-redirect" title="Linguasphere Register">Linguasphere Register </a></i> code-system

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<td>Two-digit + one to six letter Linguasphere Register code-system published in 2000,<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> containing over 32,000 codes within 10 sectors of reference, covering the world's languages and speech communities.

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<p>Within hierarchy of Linguasphere Register code-system:

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<ul><li><b>5=</b> Indo-European phylosector</li>

<li><b>52=</b> Germanic phylozone</li>

<li><b>52-A</b> Germanic set</li>

<li><b>52-AB</b> English + Anglo-Creole chain</li>

<li><b>52-ABA</b> English net</li>

<li><b>52-ABA-c</b> Global English (outer unit)<br> <b>52-ABA-ca</b> to <b>52-ABA-cwe</b> (186 varieties)</li></ul>

<p><i>Compare:</i> <b>52-ABA-a</b> Scots + Northumbrian <br>outer unit & <b>52-ABA-b</b> "Anglo-English" outer unit <br>(= South Great Britain traditional varieties + Old Anglo-Irish)

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<p>Within hierarchy of Linguasphere Register code-system:

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<ul><li><b>5=</b> Indo-European phylosector</li>

<li><b>51=</b> Romanic phylozone</li>

<li><b>51-A</b> Romance set</li>

<li><b>51-AA</b> Romance chain</li>

<li><b>51-AAA</b> West Romance net</li>

<li><b>51-AAA-b</b> Español/Castellano (outer unit) <br> <b>51-AAA-ba</b> to <b>51-AAA-bkk</b> (58 varieties)</li></ul>

<p><i>Compare:</i> <b>51-AAA-a</b> Português + Galego outer unit & <b>51-AAA-c</b> Astur + Leonés outer unit, etc.

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<td><a href="Ethnologue" title="Ethnologue">SIL codes</a> (10th–14th editions)

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<td>Codes created for use in the <i><a href="Ethnologue" title="Ethnologue">Ethnologue</a></i>, a publication of <a href="SIL_International" class="mw-redirect" title="SIL International">SIL International</a> that lists language statistics. The publication now uses ISO 639‑3 codes.

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<td>Verbix language codes

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<td>Constructed codes starting with old SIL codes and adding more information.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

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<ul><li><a href="Accept-Language" class="mw-redirect" title="Accept-Language">Accept-Language</a></li>

<li><a href="Codes_for_constructed_languages" title="Codes for constructed languages">Codes for constructed languages</a></li>

<li><a href="Country_code" title="Country code">Country code</a></li>

<li><a href="Flag_icons_for_languages" title="Flag icons for languages">Flag icons for languages</a></li>

<li><a href="List_of_ISO_639-1_codes" class="mw-redirect" title="List of ISO 639-1 codes">List of ISO 639-1 codes</a> - codes for common languages</li>

<li><a href="List_of_ISO_639-2_codes" title="List of ISO 639-2 codes">List of ISO 639-2 codes</a> - expanded 3 character code list of all languages coded by ISO</li>

<li><a href="Locale_(computer_software)" title="Locale (computer software)">Locale (computer software)</a></li></ul>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>

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</style><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47">"Information on BCP 47 » RFC Editor"</a>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150427113020/http://www.linguasphere.info/lcontao/bienvenue-welcome.html">"The Linguasphere Register in PDF"</a>. <i>l’Observatoire linguistique (Linguasphere Observatory)</i>. Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.linguasphere.info/lcontao/bienvenue-welcome.html">the original</a> on 27 April 2015<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">20 April</span> 2015</span>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.verbix.com/languages/codes.asp">Verbix language codes</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090401232004/http://www.verbix.com/languages/codes.asp">Archived</a> 2009-04-01 at the <a href="Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine">Wayback Machine</a>, <i>Verbix</i></span>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div>

<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.lingoes.net/en/translator/langcode.htm">List of usual language codes and its variants</a></li></ul></div><div><div class="zim-footer">

This article is issued from <a class="external text" title="Last edited on 2025-03-29" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?title=Language_code&oldid=1282960721">Wikipedia</a>. The text is available under <a class="external text" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0</a> unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

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