Using Language Identifiers (RFC 3066)

Using Language Identifiers (RFC 3066)

Language identifiers as specified by RFC 3066, can have the form language, language-country, language-country-variant and some other specialized forms. The guidelines for choosing between language and language-country are ambiguous.

To clarify which form should be used, John Cowan and I have posted this list for review. This is currently a draft document. It will be continually revised as we get feedback from linguists and internationalization experts. (Although, I have a day job, so allow some time for me turn it around.) The topic is being discussed on the W3C www-international mail list and the IETF ietf-lang mail list. (The feedback thread starts www-international 2004OctDec-0131 and ietf-lang 2004-12-002431.)

This page is intended to list combinations of language code and country code that have been found useful in distinguishing language variants from each other. Please write the authors if you think either that there is no variation between two code pairs listed, or that there are additional code pairs that are useful in distinguishing written variants.

Send comments to Tex Texin and John Cowan. To improve turn-around of edits, please make sure the mail uses the subject: "Language Identifier List Comments". This will help us easily identify the mails and process them. Please use a different subject heading for other discussions.

There are a number of suggestions for deciding whether to use a one-level (language only) or two-level (language-region) tag. They require some discussion and will be added here shortly.

Language codes used as primary subtags are from ISO 639. Country codes used as secondary subtags (or tertiary if script tags are secondary) are from ISO 3166. Note also that several unique language tags are also defined in the IANA Language Tag Registry. Script codes, generally 4 letters in length, such as "Hans" for Simplified Chinese, "Hant" for Traditonal Chinese, "Cyrl" for Cyrillic, etc. are defined by ISO 15924 Codes For The Representation Of Names Of Scripts.

DRAFT

Proposed List of 1-level Language Identifiers

Some languages have no significant variations, and therefore can be adequately represented by a language subtag alone, as opposed to a language subtag and country subtag. We would like to clarify which languages are in this category.

Proposed List of 2-level Language Identifiers

Some languages differ by region and therefore a language subtag and country subtag may be used to identify the language more precisely. Note that depending on the purpose or intended audience of the content, a very precise label may not be needed and a one-level language tag may be adequate. For example, using "en" for this page may be sufficient instead of en-US. If the tag is being used with an application (as opposed to labeling content) the requirement for precision may also vary.

John Cowan provided the original data for this list. The list has since been amended based on suggestions from a number of folks and considerable research.

Table Legend

In the following table, the language codes are followed by a parenthesized expression which contains the language name and if the region code is different from the region represented by the row, a region name. For example, en-US (English, U.S.).

Tags will look different depending on their source and whether they have been deprecated. Their appearance is as follows:

ISO 639 tags IANA registry tags deprecated tags

Region Code	Region Name	Languages [Format:Tag (Language Name, Region Name)]
(none)	No region assigned	eo (Esperanto) ia (Interlingua) ie (Interlingue) io (Ido) vo (Volapük)
AD	Andorra	ca (Catalan) fr-AD (French)
AE	United Arab Emirates	ar-AE (Arabic)
AF	Afghanistan	fa-AF (Persian) ps (Pushto) ug (Uighur) uz-AF (Uzbek)
AG	Antigua And Barbuda	en-AG (English)
AI	Anguilla	en-AI (English)
AL	Albania	sq (Albanian)
AM	Armenia	hy (Armenian)
AN	Netherlands Antilles	nl-AN (Dutch)
AO	Angola	kg (Kongo) kj (Kuanyama) pt-AO (Portuguese)
AR	Argentina	cy-AR (Welsh) es-AR (Spanish) gn (Guarani)
AS	American Samoa	en-AS (English) sm (Samoan)
AT	Austria	de-AT (German) hu (Hungarian)
AU	Australia	en-AU (English) YI (Yiddish)
AW	Aruba	nl-AW (Dutch)
AX	Åland Islands	sv-AX (Swedish)
AZ	Azerbaijan	av (Avaric) az (Azerbaijani) az-Arab (Azerbaijani) az-Cyrl (Azerbaijani) az-Latn (Azerbaijani) os (Ossetian)
BA	Bosnia And Herzegovina	bs (Bosnian) hr-BA (Croatian) sr-BA (Serbian)
BB	Barbados	en-BB (English)
BD	Bangladesh	bn-BD (Bengali)
BE	Belgium	de-BE (German) en-BE (English) fr-BE (French) nl-BE (Dutch) wa (Walloon) yi (Yiddish)
BF	Burkina Faso	bm (Bambara) fr-BF (French) ha (Hausa)
BG	Bulgaria	bg (Bulgarian) cu (Church Slavic) tr-BG (Turkish)
BH	Bahrain	ar-BH (Arabic)
BI	Burundi	fr-BI (French) rn (Rundi)
BJ	Benin	fr-BJ (French)
BM	Bermuda	en-BM (English)
BN	Brunei Darussalam	en-BN (English) ms-BN (Malay)
BO	Bolivia	ay (Aymara) es-BO (Spanish)
BR	Brazil	pt-BR (Portuguese)
BS	Bahamas	en-BS (English)
BT	Bhutan	dz (Dzongkha) ne (Nepali)
BW	Botswana	en-BW (English) sn (Shona) tn-BW (Tswana)
BY	Belarus	be (Belarusian) cu (Church Slavic) yi (Yiddish)
BZ	Belize	en-BZ (English)
CA	Canada	cr (Cree) en-CA (English) fr-CA (French) iu (Inuktitut) oj (Ojibwa) yi (Yiddish)
CC	Cocos (Keeling) Islands	ms-CC (Malay)
CD	Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The	fr-CD (French) kg (Kongo) ln-CD (Lingala) lu (Luba-Katanga)
CF	Central African Republic	fr-CF (French) sg (Sango)
CG	Congo	fr-CG (French) kg (Kongo) ln-CG (Lingala)
CH	Switzerland	de-CH (German) fr-CH (French) it-CH (Italian) rm (Raeto-Romance)
CI	Côte D'ivoire	ak (Akan) bm (Bambara) fr-CI (French)
CK	Cook Islands	en-CK (English)
CL	Chile	ay (Aymara) es-CL (Spanish)
CM	Cameroon	en-CM (English) fr-CM (French)
CN	China	bo (Tibetan) i-hak (Hakka) ii (Sichuan Yi) za (Zhuang) zh-CN (Chinese) zh-gan (Chinese) zh-guoyu (Chinese) zh-hakka (Chinese) zh-Hans (Chinese) zh-Hant (Chinese) zh-wuu (Chinese) zh-xiang (Chinese) zh-yue (Chinese)
CO	Colombia	es-CO (Spanish)
CR	Costa Rica	es-CR (Spanish)
CS	Serbia And Montenegro	cu (Church Slavic) hu (Hungarian) sq (Albanian) sr (Serbian) sr-Cyrl (Serbian) sr-Latn (Serbian)
CU	Cuba	es-CU (Spanish)
CV	Cape Verde	pt-CV (Portuguese)
CX	Christmas Island	ms-CC (Malay,Cocos (Keeling) Islands)
CY	Cyprus	el-CY (Greek) tr-CY (Turkish)
CZ	Czech Republic	cs (Czech)
DE	Germany	da-DE (Danish) da-DE (Danish) de-1901 (German) de-1996 (German) de-AT-1901 (German) de-AT-1996 (German) de-CH-1901 (German) de-CH-1996 (German) de-DE (German) de-DE-1901 (German) de-DE-1996 (German) dsb (Lower Sorbian) fy-DE (Frisian) hsb (Upper Sorbian) lb (Luxembourgish) nds (Low German) wen (Sorbian) yi (Yiddish)
DJ	Djibouti	aa-DJ (Afar) fr-DJ (French) so-DJ (Somali)
DK	Denmark	da-DK (Danish) de-DK (German)
DM	Dominica	en-DM (English)
DO	Dominican Republic	es-DO (Spanish)
DZ	Algeria	ar-DZ (Arabic)
EC	Ecuador	es-EC (Spanish)
EE	Estonia	et (Estonian) yi (Yiddish)
EG	Egypt	ar-EG (Arabic)
ER	Eritrea	aa-ER (Afar) byn (Blin) en-ER (English) gez-ER (Geez) ti-ER (Tigrinya) tig (Tigre)
ES	Spain	an (Aragonese) ca (Catalan) es-ES (Spanish) eu (Basque) gl (Galician)
ET	Ethiopia	aa-ET (Afar) am (Amharic) en-ET (English) gez-ET (Geez) om-ET (Oromo) sid (Sidamo) so-ET (Somali) ti-ET (Tigrinya) wal (Walamo)
FI	Finland	fi-FI (Finnish) smn (Inari Sami) sv-FI (Swedish)
FJ	Fiji	en-FJ (English) fj (Fijian)
FK	Falkland Islands (Malvinas)	en-FK (English)
FM	Micronesia, Federated States Of	en-FM (English)
FO	Faroe Islands	da-FO (Danish) fo (Faroese)
FR	France	br (Breton) co (Corsican) de-FR (German) fr-FR (French) oc (Occitan)
GA	Gabon	fr-GA (French)
GB	United Kingdom	cy-GB (Welsh) en-boont (English) en-GB (English) en-GB-oed (English) en-scouse (English) fr-GB (French) ga-GB (Irish) gd (Gaelic) gv (Manx) kw (Cornish)
GD	Grenada	en-GD (English)
GE	Georgia	ab (Abkhazian) ka (Georgian) os (Ossetian)
GF	French Guiana	fr-GF (French)
GH	Ghana	ak (Akan) ee (Ewe) en-GH (English) tw (Twi)
GI	Gibraltar	en-GI (English)
GL	Greenland	da-GL (Danish) kl (Kalaallisut)
GM	Gambia	bm (Bambara) en-GM (English) wo (Wolof)
GN	Guinea	fr-GN (French)
GP	Guadeloupe	fr-GP (French)
GQ	Equatorial Guinea	es-GQ (Spanish)
GR	Greece	el-GR (Greek)
GT	Guatemala	es-GT (Spanish)
GU	Guam	ch-GU (Chamorro) en-GU (English)
GW	Guinea-Bissau	pt-GW (Portuguese)
GY	Guyana	en-GY (English)
HK	Hong Kong	en-HK (English) zh-Hant (Chinese) zh-Hant-HK (Chinese) zh-HK (Chinese)
HN	Honduras	es-HN (Spanish)
HR	Croatia	hr-HR (Croatian) it-HR (Italian)
HT	Haiti	fr-HT (French) ht (Haitian)
HU	Hungary	de-HU (German) hu-HU (Hungarian) sk-HU (Slovak) sr-HU (Serbian)
ID	Indonesia	id (Indonesian) jv (Javanese) su (Sundanese)
IE	Ireland	en-IE (English) ga-IE (Irish)
IL	Israel	ar-IL (Arabic) en-IL (English) he (Hebrew) yi (Yiddish)
IN	India	ar-IN (Arabic) as (Assamese) bh (Bihari) bn-IN (Bengali) en-IN (English) gu (Gujarati) hi (Hindi) kn (Kannada) kok (Konkani) ks (Kashmiri) ml (Malayalam) mr (Marathi) ne (Nepali) or (Oriya) pa (Panjabi) pi (Pali) sa (Sanskrit) sd-IN (Sindhi) ta-IN (Tamil) te (Telugu) ur-IN (Urdu)
IO	British Indian Ocean Territory	en-IO (English)
IQ	Iraq	ar-IQ (Arabic) ku (Kurdish)
IR	Iran, Islamic Republic Of	ae (Avestan) fa-IR (Persian) ku (Kurdish)
IS	Iceland	is (Icelandic)
IT	Italy	co (Corsican) de-IT (German) fr-IT (French) it-IT (Italian) sc (Sardinian)
JM	Jamaica	en-JM (English)
JO	Jordan	ar-JO (Arabic)
JP	Japan	ja (Japanese)
KE	Kenya	en-KE (English) ki (Kikuyu) om-KE (Oromo) so-KE (Somali) sw-KE (Swahili)
KG	Kyrgyzstan	ky (Kirghiz) ug (Uighur)
KH	Cambodia	km (Khmer)
KI	Kiribati	en-KI (English)
KM	Comoros	fr-KM (French)
KN	Saint Kitts And Nevis	en-KN (English)
KP	Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of	ko-KP (Korean)
KR	Korea, Republic Of	ko-KR (Korean)
KW	Kuwait	ar-KW (Arabic)
KY	Cayman Islands	en-KY (English)
KZ	Kazakhstan	av (Avaric) kk (Kazakh) os (Ossetian) ug (Uighur)
LA	Lao People's Democratic Republic	lo (Lao)
LB	Lebanon	ar-LB (Arabic) fr-LB (French)
LC	Saint Lucia	en-LC (English)
LI	Liechtenstein	de-LI (German)
LK	Sri Lanka	si (Sinhala)
LR	Liberia	en-LR (English)
LS	Lesotho	en-LS (English) st (Southern Sotho) xh (Xhosa)
LT	Lithuania	lt (Lithuanian) yi (Yiddish)
LU	Luxembourg	de-LU (German) fr-LU (French) lb (Luxembourgish)
LV	Latvia	lv (Latvian) yi (Yiddish)
LY	Libyan Arab Jamahiriya	ar-LY (Arabic)
MA	Morocco	ar-MA (Arabic)
MC	Monaco	fr-MC (French)
MD	Moldova, Republic Of	mo (Moldavian) ro (Romanian) tr (Turkish) uk (Ukrainian) yi (Yiddish)
MG	Madagascar	fr-MG (French) mg (Malagasy)
MH	Marshall Islands	en-MH (English) mh (Marshallese)
MK	Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic Of	cu (Church Slavic) mk (Macedonian)
ML	Mali	bm (Bambara) fr-ML (French)
MM	Myanmar	my (Burmese)
MN	Mongolia	mn (Mongolian)
MO	Macao	zh-Hant (Chinese) zh-MO (Chinese)
MP	Northern Mariana Islands	ch-MP (Chamorro) en-MP (English)
MQ	Martinique	fr-MQ (French)
MR	Mauritania	ar-MR (Arabic) wo (Wolof)
MS	Montserrat	en-MS (English)
MT	Malta	en-MT (English) mt (Maltese)
MU	Mauritius	en-MU (English)
MV	Maldives	dv (Divehi)
MW	Malawi	en-MW (English) ny (Chichewa)
MX	Mexico	es-MX (Spanish)
MY	Malaysia	jv (Javanese) ms-MY (Malay)
MZ	Mozambique	pt-MZ (Portuguese) sn (Shona)
NA	Namibia	en-NA (English) hz (Herero) ng (Ndonga)
NC	New Caledonia	fr-NC (French)
NE	Niger	ff-NE (Fulah) fr-NE (French) ha (Hausa) kr (Kanuri)
NF	Norfolk Island	en-NF (English)
NG	Nigeria	en-NG (English) ff-NG (Fulah) ha (Hausa) ig (Igbo) kr (Kanuri) yo (Yoruba)
NI	Nicaragua	es-NI (Spanish)
NL	Netherlands	fy-NL (Frisian) li (Limburgan) nl-NL (Dutch)
NO	Norway	nb (Bokmål) nn (Nynorsk) no (Norwegian) no-bok (Norwegian) no-nyn (Norwegian)
NP	Nepal	ne (Nepali)
NR	Nauru	en-NR (English) na (Nauru)
NU	Niue	en-NU (English)
NZ	New Zealand	en-NZ (English) mi (Maori)
OM	Oman	ar-OM (Arabic)
PA	Panama	es-PA (Spanish)
PE	Peru	ay (Aymara) es-PE (Spanish) qu (Quechua)
PF	French Polynesia	fr-PF (French) ty (Tahitian)
PG	Papua New Guinea	en-PG (English) ho (Hiri Motu)
PH	Philippines	en-PH (English) tl (Tagalog)
PK	Pakistan	en-PK (English) sd-PK (Sindhi) ur-PK (Urdu)
PL	Poland	de-PL (German) pl (Polish) yi (Yiddish)
PM	Saint Pierre And Miquelon	fr-PM (French)
PN	Pitcairn	en-PN (English)
PR	Puerto Rico	en-PR (English) es-PR (Spanish)
PS	Palestinian Territory, Occupied	ar-PS (Arabic)
PT	Portugal	pt-PT (Portuguese)
PW	Palau	en-PW (English)
PY	Paraguay	es-PY (Spanish) gn (Guarani)
QA	Qatar	ar-QA (Arabic)
RE	Réunion	fr-RE (French)
RO	Romania	cu (Church Slavic) hu (Hungarian) ro (Romanian) YI (Yiddish)
RU	Russian Federation	av (Avaric) ba (Bashkir) ce (Chechen) cu (Church Slavic) cv (Chuvash) kv (Komi) os (Ossetian) ru-RU (Russian) tt (Tatar) yi (Yiddish)
RW	Rwanda	en-RW (English) fr-RW (French) rw (Kinyarwanda)
SA	Saudi Arabia	ar-SA (Arabic)
SB	Solomon Islands	en-SB (English)
SC	Seychelles	en-SC (English) fr-SC (French)
SD	Sudan	ar-SD (Arabic) din (Dinka) ha (Hausa)
SE	Sweden	fi-SE (Finnish) se (Northern Sami) sma (S. Sami) sme (N. Sami) sv-SE (Swedish)
SG	Singapore	bn-SG (Bengali) en-SG (English) ms-SG (Malay) ta-SG (Tamil) zh-Hans-SG (Chinese) zh-SG (Chinese)
SH	Saint Helena	en-SH (English)
SI	Slovenia	hu-SI (Hungarian) it-SI (Italian)
SK	Slovakia	hu (Hungarian) sk (Slovak)
SL	Sierra Leone	en-SL (English)
SM	San Marino	it-SM (Italian)
SN	Senegal	ff-SN (Fulah) wo (Wolof)
SO	Somalia	ar-SO (Arabic) en-SO (English) so-SO (Somali)
SR	Suriname	jv (Javanese) nl-SR (Dutch)
ST	Sao Tome And Principe	pt-ST (Portuguese)
SV	El Salvador	es-SV (Spanish)
SY	Syrian Arab Republic	ar-SY (Arabic) syr (Syriac)
SZ	Swaziland	en-SZ (English) ss-SZ (Swati)
TC	Turks And Caicos Islands	en-TC (English)
TD	Chad	ar-TD (Arabic) fr-TD (French)
TG	Togo	ee (Ewe) fr-TG (French) ha (Hausa)
TH	Thailand	si (Sinhala) th (Thai)
TJ	Tajikistan	os (Ossetian) tg (Tajik) ug (Uighur)
TK	Tokelau	en-TK (English)
TL	Timor-Leste	pt-TL (Portuguese)
TM	Turkmenistan	os (Ossetian) tk (Turkmen)
TN	Tunisia	ar-TN (Arabic)
TO	Tonga	en-TO (English) to (Tongan)
TR	Turkey	ab (Abkhazian) av (Avaric) ku (Kurdish) tr-TR (Turkish) ug (Uighur)
TT	Trinidad And Tobago	en-TT (English)
TV	Tuvalu	gil (Gilbertese) tvl (Tuvalu)
TW	Taiwan, Province Of China	zh-Hant (Chinese) zh-min (Chinese) zh-min-nan (Chinese) zh-TW (Chinese)
TZ	Tanzania, United Republic Of	sw-TZ (Swahili)
UA	Ukraine	ab (Abkhazian) cu (Church Slavic) hu (Hungarian) os (Ossetian) pl (Polish) ro (Romanian) ru-UA (Russian) uk (Ukrainian) yi (Yiddish)
UG	Uganda	en-UG (English) lg (Ganda)
UM	United States Minor Outlying Islands	en-UM (English)
US	United States	en-US (English) es-US (Spanish) haw (Hawaiian) ik (Inupiaq) nv (Navajo) oj (Ojibwa) yi (Yiddish)
UY	Uruguay	es-UY (Spanish)
UZ	Uzbekistan	os (Ossetian) ug (Uighur) uz-Cyrl (Uzbek) uz-Latn (Uzbek) uz-UZ (Uzbek)
VA	Holy See (Vatican City State)	fr (French) it (Italian) la (Latin)
VC	Saint Vincent And The Grenadines	en-VC (English)
VE	Venezuela	es-VE (Spanish)
VG	Virgin Islands, British	en-VG (English)
VI	Virgin Islands, U.S.	en-VI (English)
VN	Viet Nam	vi (Vietnamese)
VU	Vanuatu	bi (Bislama) en-VU (English) fr-VU (French)
WF	Wallis And Futuna	fr-WF (French)
WS	Samoa	en-WS (English) sm (Samoan)
YE	Yemen	ar-YE (Arabic)
YT	Mayotte	fr-YT (French)
YU	Yugoslavia	sr-YU (Serbian)
ZA	South Africa	af (Afrikaans) en-ZA (English) nr (S. Ndebele) ss-ZA (Swati) tn-ZA (Tswana) ts (Tsonga) ve (Venda) xh (Xhosa) yi (Yiddish) zu (Zulu)
ZM	Zambia	en-ZM (English)
ZW	Zimbabwe	en-ZW (English) nd (N. Ndebele) sn (Shona) ve (Venda) zu (Zulu)

References

• IANA Language Tag Registry
• ISO 639, Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages
• ISO 3166-1, Codes For The Representation Of Names Of Countries And Their Subdivisions - Part 1: Country Codes
• ISO 15924, Codes For The Representation Of Names Of Scripts
• U. N. Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use

• CIA factbook languages
• SIL International's Ethnologue
• Translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Wikipedia on Language

Copyright © 2004, 2005 Tex Texin, John Cowan. All rights reserved.
This page last updated 2005-01-01.
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