ISO 639 language codes
Summary
ISO 639 language names (including native names) and their corresponding ISO 639-1 Alpha-2 language codes. These can be used in e.g. HTML lang and hreflang attribute values to inform about languages, e.g. lang="en".
Introduction #
ISO 639 is a set of international standards (standardized nomenclature) that provides a system for representing language names and language codes. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed these standards to create a consistent and uniform way of identifying languages, facilitating communication across different systems and applications.
List of ISO 639 language codes #
| Language name | ISO 639-1 code |
|---|---|
| Abkhaz аҧсуа | ab |
| Afar Afaraf | aa |
| Afrikaans Afrikaans | af |
| Akan Akan | ak |
| Albanian Shqip | sq |
| Amharic አማርኛ | am |
| Arabic العربية | ar |
| Aragonese Aragonés | an |
| Armenian Հայերեն | hy |
| Assamese অসমীয়া | as |
| Avaric авар мацӀ, магӀарул мацӀ | av |
| Avestan avesta | ae |
| Aymara aymar aru | ay |
| Azerbaijani azərbaycan dili | az |
| Bambara bamanankan | bm |
| Bashkir башҡорт теле | ba |
| Basque euskara, euskera | eu |
| Belarusian Беларуская | be |
| Bengali বাংলা | bn |
| Bihari भोजपुरी | bh |
| Bislama Bislama | bi |
| Bosnian bosanski jezik | bs |
| Breton brezhoneg | br |
| Bulgarian български език | bg |
| Burmese ဗမာစာ | my |
| Catalan; Valencian Català | ca |
| Chamorro Chamoru | ch |
| Chechen нохчийн мотт | ce |
| Chichewa; Chewa; Nyanja chiCheŵa, chinyanja | ny |
| Chinese 中文 (Zhōngwén), 汉语, 漢語 | zh |
| Chuvash чӑваш чӗлхи | cv |
| Cornish Kernewek | kw |
| Corsican corsu, lingua corsa | co |
| Cree ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ | cr |
| Croatian hrvatski | hr |
| Czech česky, čeština | cs |
| Danish dansk | da |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian; ދިވެހި | dv |
| Dutch Nederlands, Vlaams | nl |
| English English | en |
| Esperanto Esperanto | eo |
| Estonian eesti, eesti keel | et |
| Ewe Eʋegbe | ee |
| Faroese føroyskt | fo |
| Fijian vosa Vakaviti | fj |
| Finnish suomi, suomen kieli | fi |
| French français, langue française | fr |
| Fula; Fulah; Pulaar; Pular Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular | ff |
| Galician Galego | gl |
| Georgian ქართული | ka |
| German Deutsch | de |
| Greek, Modern Ελληνικά | el |
| Guaraní Avañeẽ | gn |
| Gujarati ગુજરાતી | gu |
| Haitian; Haitian Creole Kreyòl ayisyen | ht |
| Hausa Hausa, هَوُسَ | ha |
| Hebrew (modern) עברית | he |
| Herero Otjiherero | hz |
| Hindi हिन्दी, हिंदी | hi |
| Hiri Motu Hiri Motu | ho |
| Hungarian Magyar | hu |
| Interlingua Interlingua | ia |
| Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia | id |
| Interlingue Originally called Occidental; then Interlingue after WWII | ie |
| Irish Gaeilge | ga |
| Igbo Asụsụ Igbo | ig |
| Inupiaq Iñupiaq, Iñupiatun | ik |
| Ido Ido | io |
| Icelandic Íslenska | is |
| Italian Italiano | it |
| Inuktitut ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ | iu |
| Japanese 日本語 (にほんご／にっぽんご) | ja |
| Javanese basa Jawa | jv |
| Kalaallisut, Greenlandic kalaallisut, kalaallit oqaasii | kl |
| Kannada ಕನ್ನಡ | kn |
| Kanuri Kanuri | kr |
| Kashmiri कश्मीरी, كشميري | ks |
| Kazakh Қазақ тілі | kk |
| Khmer ភាសាខ្មែរ | km |
| Kikuyu, Gikuyu Gĩkũyũ | ki |
| Kinyarwanda Ikinyarwanda | rw |
| Kirghiz, Kyrgyz кыргыз тили | ky |
| Komi коми кыв | kv |
| Kongo KiKongo | kg |
| Korean 한국어 (韓國語), 조선말 (朝鮮語) | ko |
| Kurdish Kurdî, كوردی | ku |
| Kwanyama, Kuanyama Kuanyama | kj |
| Latin latine, lingua latina | la |
| Luxembourgish, Letzeburgesch Lëtzebuergesch | lb |
| Luganda Luganda | lg |
| Limburgish, Limburgan, Limburger Limburgs | li |
| Lingala Lingála | ln |
| Lao ພາສາລາວ | lo |
| Lithuanian lietuvių kalba | lt |
| Luba-Katanga Tshiluba | lu |
| Latvian latviešu valoda | lv |
| Manx Gaelg, Gailck | gv |
| Macedonian македонски јазик | mk |
| Malagasy Malagasy fiteny | mg |
| Malay bahasa Melayu, بهاس ملايو | ms |
| Malayalam മലയാളം | ml |
| Maltese Malti | mt |
| Māori te reo Māori | mi |
| Marathi (Marāṭhī) मराठी | mr |
| Marshallese Kajin M̧ajeļ | mh |
| Mongolian монгол | mn |
| Nauru Ekakairũ Naoero | na |
| Navajo, Navaho Diné bizaad, Dinékʼehǰí | nv |
| Norwegian Bokmål Norsk bokmål | nb |
| North Ndebele isiNdebele | nd |
| Nepali नेपाली | ne |
| Ndonga Owambo | ng |
| Norwegian Nynorsk Norsk nynorsk | nn |
| Norwegian Norsk | no |
| Nuosu ꆈꌠ꒿ Nuosuhxop | ii |
| South Ndebele isiNdebele | nr |
| Occitan Occitan | oc |
| Ojibwe, Ojibwa ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᒧᐎᓐ | oj |
| Church/Old Slavic/Slavonic ѩзыкъ словѣньскъ | cu |
| Oromo Afaan Oromoo | om |
| Oriya ଓଡ଼ିଆ | or |
| Ossetian, Ossetic ирон æвзаг | os |
| Panjabi, Punjabi ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, پنجابی | pa |
| Pāli पाऴि | pi |
| Persian فارسی | fa |
| Polish polski | pl |
| Pashto, Pushto پښتو | ps |
| Portuguese Português | pt |
| Quechua Runa Simi, Kichwa | qu |
| Romansh rumantsch grischun | rm |
| Kirundi kiRundi | rn |
| Romanian, Moldavian, Moldovan română | ro |
| Russian русский язык | ru |
| Sanskrit (Saṁskṛta) संस्कृतम् | sa |
| Sardinian sardu | sc |
| Sindhi सिन्धी, سنڌي، سندھی | sd |
| Northern Sami Davvisámegiella | se |
| Samoan gagana faa Samoa | sm |
| Sango yângâ tî sängö | sg |
| Serbian српски језик | sr |
| Scottish Gaelic; Gaelic Gàidhlig | gd |
| Shona chiShona | sn |
| Sinhala, Sinhalese සිංහල | si |
| Slovak slovenčina | sk |
| Slovene slovenščina | sl |
| Somali Soomaaliga, af Soomaali | so |
| Southern Sotho Sesotho | st |
| Spanish; Castilian español, castellano | es |
| Sundanese Basa Sunda | su |
| Swahili Kiswahili | sw |
| Swati SiSwati | ss |
| Swedish svenska | sv |
| Tamil தமிழ் | ta |
| Telugu తెలుగు | te |
| Tajik тоҷикӣ, toğikī, تاجیکی | tg |
| Thai ไทย | th |
| Tigrinya ትግርኛ | ti |
| Tibetan Standard, Tibetan, Central བོད་ཡིག | bo |
| Turkmen Türkmen, Түркмен | tk |
| Tagalog Wikang Tagalog, ᜏᜒᜃᜅ᜔ ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔ | tl |
| Tswana Setswana | tn |
| Tonga (Tonga Islands) faka Tonga | to |
| Turkish Türkçe | tr |
| Tsonga Xitsonga | ts |
| Tatar татарча, tatarça, تاتارچا | tt |
| Twi Twi | tw |
| Tahitian Reo Tahiti | ty |
| Uighur, Uyghur Uyƣurqə, ئۇيغۇرچە | ug |
| Ukrainian українська | uk |
| Urdu اردو | ur |
| Uzbek zbek, Ўзбек, أۇزبېك | uz |
| Venda Tshivenḓa | ve |
| Vietnamese Tiếng Việt | vi |
| Volapük Volapük | vo |
| Walloon Walon | wa |
| Welsh Cymraeg | cy |
| Wolof Wollof | wo |
| Western Frisian Frysk | fy |
| Xhosa isiXhosa | xh |
| Yiddish ייִדיש | yi |
| Yoruba Yorùbá | yo |
| Zhuang, Chuang Saɯ cueŋƅ, Saw cuengh | za |
Parts of ISO 639 #
ISO 639 is divided into different parts, each addressing a specific aspect of language codes:
ISO 639-1 #
This part of the standard specifies two-letter language codes. It is the shorter and more widely used version of language codes in applications where brevity is essential. For example, “en” represents English, “fr” represents French, and “es” represents Spanish.
ISO 639-2 #
This part provides three-letter codes for the representation of languages, including codes for some languages not covered by ISO 639-1. These three-letter codes are useful in situations where more specificity is needed. For example, “eng” represents English, “fra” represents French, and “spa” represents Spanish.
ISO 639-3 #
ISO 639-3 extends the coding system to cover all known languages, including both living and extinct languages. It uses three-letter codes as well. For example, “eng” represents English, “fra” represents French, and “spa” represents Spanish.
ISO 639 codes are widely used in various fields, such as information technology, linguistics, library cataloging, and internationalization. They play a crucial role in ensuring that language-related information is standardized and interoperable across different systems and platforms. They are especially important in contexts where multilingual support and language identification are needed, e.g. in software localization, website content, and databases.
Further readings #
Sources and recommended, further resources on the topic:
Author
Jonas Jared Jacek (J15k)
Jonas works as project manager, web designer, and web developer since 2001. On top of that, he is a Linux system administrator with a broad interest in things related to programming, architecture, and design. See: https://www.j15k.com/License
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