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ISO 639 is the set of international standards that lists short codes for language names. It was also the name of the original standard, approved in 1967 and withdrawn in 2002.
ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which four parts have been approved (parts 1, 2, 3 and 5). The other parts are works in progress.[1]
Contents |
| Standard | Name (Codes for the representation of names of languages -- ...) | first edition | current | list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISO 639-1 | Part 1: Alpha-2 code | 1967 (as ISO 639) | 2002 | 185 |
| ISO 639-2 | Part 2: Alpha-3 code | 1998 | 1998 | >450 |
| ISO 639-3 | Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages | 2007 | 2007 | 7704 + local range |
| ISO/DIS 639-4 | Part 4: Implementation guidelines and general principles for language coding | Planned for Nov 2008 | - | - |
| ISO 639-5 | Part 5: Alpha-3 code for language families and groups | 2008-05-15 | 2008-05-15 | X |
| ISO/CD 639-6 | Part 6: Alpha-4 representation for comprehensive coverage of language variation | - | 2008? | - |
Each part of the standard is maintained by a maintenance agency, which adds codes and changes the status of codes when needed.
Scopes:
Types (for individual languages):
Bibliographic and terminology codes
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| ISO 639-1 | ISO 639-2 | ISO 639-3 | ISO 639-5 | # | Description of example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| en | eng | eng | (-) | 132 | 185 in Part 1, subtract all special cases for Part 1 codes, 185-2-25-17-4-2-1-1-1=132 |
| nb | nob | nob | (-) | 2 | individual language, belongs to macrolanguage (nor), same code in Part 2 and has a code in Part 1. The two codes are: nob, non |
| ar | ara | ara (M) | (-) | 25 | Part 3 macro, 55 macro total, subtract special cases, 55-24-4-1-1=25 |
| de | ger/deu (B/T) | deu | (-) | 15 | 22 elements where B and T differ. Subtract special cases, 22-1-4-2=15. |
| cs | cze/ces (B/T) | ces | (-) | 1 | Element with differing B/T code and the letters from the Part 1 code are not the first two letters of the T code. |
| fa | per/fas (B/T) | fas (M) | (-) | 4 | Part 3 macro; the four T codes are: fas, msa, sqi, zho |
| hr | scr/hrv (B/T) | hrv | (-) | 2 | Part 2 B deprecated, the two T codes are: hrv, srp. Deprecated 2008-06-28. |
| no ("M") | nor ("M") | nor (M) | (-) | 1 | Part 3 macro and containing languages have codes in Part 1, nor: non, nob; no: nn, nb |
| bh | bih | (-) | ? | 1 | Bihari (bih) is marked as collective despite having an ISO 639-1 code which should only be for individual languages. The reason is that some individual Bihari languages received an ISO 639-2 code, which makes Bihari a language family for the purposes of ISO 639-2, but a single language for the purposes of ISO 639-1. The single are: bho, mai, mag |
| sh | (-) | hbs (M) | (-) | 1 | Part 3 macro, ISO 639-1 code deprecated, no part 2 code |
| (bh) | bho | bho | (-) | 3 | individual language code in Part 2 + 3, belongs not to a macrolanguage, in Part 1 covered by a code which has equivalent in Part 2 which is a collective. The three codes are: bho, mai, mag |
| (bh) | (bih) | sck | (-) | individual language no code in Part 2, belongs not to a macrolanguage, in Part 1 covered by a code which has equivalent in Part 2 which is a collective. | |
| (-) | ast | ast | (-) | individual language in Part 2 and Part 3, no code in Part 1 | |
| (-) | bal | bal (M) | (-) | 24 | individual language in Part 2 and macro in Part 3, no code in Part 1 |
| (-) | mis | mis | ? | 1 | special code: missing code |
| (-) | mul | mul | ? | 1 | special code: multilingual content |
| (-) | und | und | ? | 1 | special code: undetermined |
| (-) | zxx | zxx | ? | 1 | special code: added 2006-01-11 to declare the absence of linguistic information |
| (-) | qaa | qaa | ? | 520 | reserved for local use, range is qaa ... qtz |
| (-) | aus | (-) | aus | regular group in Part 2 | |
| (-) | afa | (-) | afa | In Part 2 a rest group, i.e. same code but different languages included. In Part 2 "afa" refers to an Afro-Asiatic language that does not have an individual-language identifier in Part 2, and that does not fall into the rest groups "ber - Berber (Other)", "cus - Cushitic (Other)", or "sem - Semitic (Other)", all of which are Afro-Asiatic language groups. | |
| (ar) | (ara "M") | arb | (-) | individual language, belongs to macrolanguage (ara), in Part 2 covered by the macrolanguage code, in Part 1 also covered | |
| (-) | (nic "R") | aaa | (-) | in Part 2 best covered by a rest group, "Niger-Kodofanian (Other)" | |
| (-) | (-) | (-) | sqj | group not coded in Part 2 |
The language codes defined in the several sections of ISO 639 are used for bibliographic purposes and, in computing and internet environments, as a key element of locale data. The codes also find use in various applications, such as Wikipedia URLs for its different language editions.
"Alpha-2" codes (for codes composed of 2 letters of the basic Latin alphabet) are used in ISO 639-1. When codes for a wider range of languages were desired, more than 2 letter combinations could cover (a maximum of 262 = 676), ISO 639-2 was developed using Alpha-3 codes (though the latter was formally published first).[citation needed]
"Alpha-3" codes (for codes composed of 3 letters of the basic Latin alphabet) are used in ISO 639-2, ISO 639-3, and ISO 639-5. Mathematically, the upper limit for the number of languages and language collections that can be so represented is 263 = 17,576.
The common use of Alpha-3 codes by three parts of ISO 639 requires some coordination within a larger system.
Part 2 defines four special codes mul, und, mis, zxx, a reserved range qaa-qtz (20 × 26 = 520 codes) and has 23 double entries (the B/T codes). This sums up to 520 + 23 + 4 = 547 codes that cannot be used in part 3 to represent languages or in part 5 to represent language families or groups. The remainder is 17,576 – 547 = 17,029.
There are somewhere around six or seven thousand languages on Earth today[6][7]. So those 17,029 codes are adequate to assign a unique code to each language, although some languages may end up with arbitrary codes that sound nothing like traditional name(s) of that language.
"Alpha-4" codes (for codes composed of 4 letters of the basic Latin alphabet) is proposed to be used in ISO 639-6. The upper limit for the number of languages and dialects that can be represented is 264 = 456,976.
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