Menu
Home
People
Places
Arts
History
Plants & Animals
Science
Life & Culture
Technology
Reference.org
Language code
open-in-new
<h2 id="difficulties-of-classification">Difficulties of classification</h2> <p>Language code schemes attempt to classify the complex world of human languages, <a href="/facts/Dialects/gJ7uQQoj">dialects</a>, and <a href="/facts/Variety_(linguistics)/QyllMQha">variants</a>. Most schemes make some compromises between being general and being complete enough to support specific dialects. </p><p>For example, <a href="/facts/Spanish_language/95BgYNfv">Spanish</a> is spoken in over 20 countries in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Spanish spoken in <a href="/facts/Mexican_Spanish/KNxH5Az8">Mexico</a> will be slightly different from Spanish spoken in <a href="/facts/Peruvian_Spanish/3ojH0MhA">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. </p> <h2 id="common-schemes">Common schemes</h2> List of some common language code schemes<table><tbody><tr><th>Scheme</th><th>Notes</th><th>Examples for English</th><th>Examples for Spanish</th></tr><tr><td><i><a href="/facts/Glottolog/WMg7NbfL">Glottolog</a></i> codes</td><td>Created for minority languages as a scientific alternative to the industrial ISO 639‑3 standard.Intentionally do not resemble abbreviations.</td><td><ul><li>stan1293 – standard English</li><li>macr1271 – macro-English (Modern English, incl. creoles)</li><li>midd1317 – Middle English</li><li>merc1242 – Mercian (Middle to Modern English)</li><li>olde1238 – Old English</li><li>angl1265 – Anglian (Old to Modern English, incl. Scots)</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>stan1288 – standard Spanish</li><li>olds1249 – Old Spanish</li><li>cast1243 – Castilic (Old to Modern Spanish, incl. Extremaduran and creoles)</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/IETF_language_tag/r7lQQ15A">IETF language tag</a></td><td>An IETF best practice, specified by BCP 47,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> 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.</td><td><ul><li>en – English, as shortest ISO 639 code.</li><li>en-US – English as used in the United States (US is the <a href="/facts/ISO_3166-1/ANcs33M7">ISO 3166‑1</a> country code for the United States)<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a></li></ul></td><td><ul><li>es – Spanish, as shortest ISO 639 code.</li><li>es-419 – Spanish appropriate for the Latin America and Caribbean region, using the <a href="/facts/UN_M.49/I1xUUqpa">UN M.49 region code</a></li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/ISO_639-1/Yo3FuVjr">ISO 639‑1</a></td><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="/facts/List_of_ISO_639_language_codes/WArHF92J">List of ISO 639 language codes</a></p></td><td><ul><li>en</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>es – Spanish</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/ISO_639-2/uIkuka2a">ISO 639‑2</a></td><td>Three-letter system of 464 codes.<p>See: <a href="/facts/List_of_ISO_639-2_codes/oQow80LU">List of ISO 639-2 codes</a></p></td><td><ul><li>eng – three-letter code</li><li>enm – Middle English, c. 1100–1500</li><li>ang – Old English, c. 450–1100</li><li>cpe – other English-based creoles and pidgins</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>spa – Spanish</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/ISO_639-3/wEgdb8bK">ISO 639‑3</a></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="/facts/List_of_ISO_639-3_codes/SGMsDqBu">List of ISO 639-3 codes</a></p></td><td><ul><li>eng – three-letter code</li><li>enm – Middle English, c. 1100–1500</li><li>aig – Antigua and Barbuda Creole English</li><li>ang – Old English, c. 450–1100</li><li>svc – Vincentian Creole English</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>spa – Spanish</li><li>spq – Spanish, Loreto-Ucayali</li><li>ssp – Spanish sign language</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><i><a href="/facts/Linguasphere_Register/esR7ommx">Linguasphere Register </a></i> code-system</td><td>Two-digit + one to six letter Linguasphere Register code-system published in 2000,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> containing over 32,000 codes within 10 sectors of reference, covering the world's languages and speech communities.</td><td><p>Within hierarchy of Linguasphere Register code-system:</p><ul><li>5= Indo-European phylosector</li><li>52= Germanic phylozone</li><li>52-A Germanic set</li><li>52-AB English + Anglo-Creole chain</li><li>52-ABA English net</li><li>52-ABA-c Global English (outer unit) 52-ABA-ca to 52-ABA-cwe (186 varieties)</li></ul><p><i>Compare:</i> 52-ABA-a Scots + Northumbrian outer unit & 52-ABA-b "Anglo-English" outer unit (= South Great Britain traditional varieties + Old Anglo-Irish)</p></td><td><p>Within hierarchy of Linguasphere Register code-system:</p><ul><li>5= Indo-European phylosector</li><li>51= Romanic phylozone</li><li>51-A Romance set</li><li>51-AA Romance chain</li><li>51-AAA West Romance net</li><li>51-AAA-b Español/Castellano (outer unit) 51-AAA-ba to 51-AAA-bkk (58 varieties)</li></ul><p><i>Compare:</i> 51-AAA-a Português + Galego outer unit & 51-AAA-c Astur + Leonés outer unit, etc.</p></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/Ethnologue/0AanCzKS">SIL codes</a> (10th–14th editions)</td><td>Codes created for use in the <i><a href="/facts/Ethnologue/0AanCzKS">Ethnologue</a></i>, a publication of <a href="/facts/SIL_International/roscIUKb">SIL International</a> that lists language statistics. The publication now uses ISO 639‑3 codes.</td><td>ENG</td><td>SPN</td></tr><tr><td>Verbix language codes</td><td>Constructed codes starting with old SIL codes and adding more information.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a></td><td>ENG</td><td>SPN</td></tr></tbody></table> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Accept-Language/hEkcQe2f">Accept-Language</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Codes_for_constructed_languages/x2Rnd7hE">Codes for constructed languages</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Country_code/4abm0MUq">Country code</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Flag_icons_for_languages/zcrhgmIF">Flag icons for languages</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes/WArHF92J">List of ISO 639-1 codes</a> - codes for common languages</li> <li><a href="/facts/List_of_ISO_639-2_codes/oQow80LU">List of ISO 639-2 codes</a> - expanded 3 character code list of all languages coded by ISO</li> <li><a href="/facts/Locale_(computer_software)/Hwbtpj4e">Locale (computer software)</a></li></ul> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> <ul><li><a href="http://www.lingoes.net/en/translator/langcode.htm">List of usual language codes and its variants</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>"Information on BCP 47 » RFC Editor". <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47" target="_blank">https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>"Information on BCP 47 » RFC Editor". <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47" target="_blank">https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>"The Linguasphere Register in PDF". l’Observatoire linguistique (Linguasphere Observatory). Archived from the original on 27 April 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2015. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150427113020/http://www.linguasphere.info/lcontao/bienvenue-welcome.html" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20150427113020/http://www.linguasphere.info/lcontao/bienvenue-welcome.html</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Verbix language codes Archived 2009-04-01 at the Wayback Machine, Verbix <a href="http://www.verbix.com/languages/codes.asp" target="_blank">http://www.verbix.com/languages/codes.asp</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>