ISO 639
ISO 639 is a set of standards by the International Organization for Standardization that is concerned with representation of names for language and language groups.
It was also the name of the original standard, approved in 1967 (as ISO 639/R)[1] and withdrawn in 2002.[2] The ISO 639 set consists of five parts.
The current and historical parts of the standard
| Standard | Name (Codes for the representation of names of languages – ...) | Registration Authority | First edition | Current | No. in list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISO 639-1 | Part 1: Alpha-2 code | Infoterm | 1967 (as ISO 639) | 2002 | 184 |
| ISO 639-2 | Part 2: Alpha-3 code | Library of Congress | 1998 | 1998 | >450 |
| ISO 639-3 | Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages | Summer Institute of Linguistics International | 2007 | 2007 | 7704 + local range |
| ISO 639-4 | Part 4: Implementation guidelines and general principles for language coding | ISO/TC 37/SC 2 | 2010-07-16 | 2010-07-16 | (not a list) |
| ISO 639-5 | Part 5: Alpha-3 code for language families and groups | Library of Congress | 2008-05-15 | 2008-05-15 | 114 |
| ISO 639-6 (withdrawn) | Part 6: Alpha-4 representation for comprehensive coverage of language variants | Geolang | 2009-11-17 | withdrawn | 21,000+ |
Each part of the standard is maintained by a maintenance agency, which adds codes and changes the status of codes when needed. ISO 639-6 was withdrawn in 2014.[3]
Characteristics of individual codes
Scopes:
- Individual languages
- Macrolanguages (part 3)
- Collections of languages (part 1, 2, 5) (part 1 contains only 1 collection: bh; most collections are in part 2, and a few were added in part 5)
- Group
- Rest group
- Dialects
- Reserved for local use (part 2, 3)
- Special situations (part 2, 3)
Types (for individual languages):
- Living languages (part 2, 3) (all macrolanguages are living languages)[4]
- Extinct languages (part 2, 3) (437,[5] four in part 2 chb, chg, cop, sam; none in part 1)
- Ancient languages (part 1, 2, 3) (112,[6] 19 are in part 2; and 5 of them, namely ave, chu, lat, pli and san, also have a code in part 1: ae, cu, la, pi, sa)
- Historic languages (part 2, 3) (63,[7] 16 of them are in part 2, none has part 1 code)
- Constructed languages (part 2, 3) (19,[8] 9 in part 2: epo, ina, ile, ido, vol, afh, jbo, tlh, zbl; five in part 1: eo, ia, ie, io, vo)
Bibliographic and terminology codes
- Bibliographic (part 2)
- Terminology (part 2)
Relations between the parts
The first four columns contain codes for a representative of a specific type of relation between the parts of ISO 639. E.g. there are four elements that have a code in part 1, have a B/T code, and are macrolanguages per part 3. One representative of these four elements is "Persian" [fas].
| 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. | |
| (-) | car | car | car | individual language in Part 2 and Part 3, but also included in Part 5 as a family[9][10] | |
| (-) | 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: uncoded language |
| (-) | 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 |
- In ISO 639-2, two alternate codes are assigned to 22 languages, namely a bibliographic and a terminology code (B/T codes).[11] B codes have been added for historical reasons as large bibliographic systems had been using language codes which differed from the according T codes. On the other hand, T codes have been chosen to be similar to the corresponding 2-character code in ISO 639-1.
- For instance, the German language (Part 1:
de) has two codes in Part 2:ger(T code) anddeu(B code), whereas there is only one code in Part 2,eng, for the English language.
- For instance, the German language (Part 1:
- Part 2 has a reserved range and three special codes:
- Codes
qaathroughqtzare reserved for local use. - There are three special codes:
mulfor "multiple languages",undfor "undefined", andzxxfor "no linguistic content, not applicable".
- Codes
- Individual languages in Part 2 always have a code in Part 3 but may or may not have a code in Part 1, as illustrated by the following examples:
- Part 3
engcorresponds to Part 2engand Part 1en - Part 3
astcorresponds to Part 2astbut lacks a code in Part 1.
- Part 3
- Collective codes in Part 2 have a code in Part 5, e.g.
ausin Part 2 and Part 5, which stands for Australian languages. - one collective code in Part 2 has a code in Part 1
- bih -> bh
- some codes in Part 5 have no code in Part 2
- sqj
- some codes (#~56) in Part 3 are macrolanguages, they may have
- no Part 2 code but a Part 1 codes and their containing languages have codes in Part 2 and Part 1 (#1): hbs <-> sh (deprecated) ; bos, hrv/scr, srp/scc -> bs, hr, sr
- a Part 2 code and a Part 1 code(#1), while their containing languages also have codes in Part 1 and Part 2: nor -> nor -> no ; non, nob -> non, nob -> nn, nb
- no Part 1 code (#several):
- two Part 2 codes (B/T) (#4): fas, msa, sqi, zho -> per/fas, may/msa, alb/sqi, chi/zho
Code space
Alpha-2 code space
"Alpha-2" codes (for codes composed of 2 letters of the ISO 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).
Alpha-3 code space
"Alpha-3" codes (for codes composed of 3 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet) are used in ISO 639-2, ISO 639-3, and ISO 639-5. The number of languages and language groups 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.[12] 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 the traditional name(s) of that language.
Alpha-4 code space
"Alpha-4" codes (for codes composed of 4 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet) were proposed to be used in ISO 639-6, which has been withdrawn. The upper limit for the number of languages and dialects that can be represented is 264 = 456,976.
See also
- IETF language tags (based on ISO 639)
- ISO 3166 (codes for countries)
- ISO 15924 (codes for writing systems)
- ISO, SIL, and BCP language codes for constructed languages
- Language code
- Language families and languages
- List of languages
- List of official languages
Notes and references
- ↑ "ISO/R 639:1967". Iso.org. 1988-03-01. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639:1988". Iso.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ ISO 639-6:2009, ISO.
- ↑ "ISO 639 code tables". Sil.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639 code tables". Sil.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639 code tables". Sil.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639 code tables". Sil.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639 code tables". Sil.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639 code sets". Sil.org. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639-5 Identifier : Codes for the representation of names of languages (ISO 639-5 Registration Authority - Library of Congress)". Loc.gov:8081. 2008-12-23. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ↑ "ISO 639-2 &endash; Frequently Asked Questions". loc.gov. 2014-05-05. Retrieved 2014-12-12.
- ↑ "Statistical Summaries". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
External links
- Official ISO 639-1/RA (Registration Authority) Infoterm
- Official ISO 639-2/RA (Registration Authority) Library of Congress
- Official ISO 639-3/RA (Registration Authority) SIL International
- Official ISO 693-5/RA (Registration Authority) Library of Congress
- Official ISO 639-6/RA (Registration Authority) Geolang
- Common Locale Data Repository which contains translations of ISO 639 codes in other languages in an XML format. The CLDR survey tool also contains a more readable format of the data.
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