Changes in the builder command:

    Added path option so you can export to another path
    Changed order in parameters so language goes last
    Added a bit more detailed explanation into help
There are certain languages in which there are no xml provided by zend framework 1 thus it throws an exception. Here the list:

Country list was not generated for locale ky_Cyrl_KG
Country list was not generated for locale nr
Country list was not generated for locale nr_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale nso
Country list was not generated for locale nso_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale ss
Country list was not generated for locale ss_SZ
Country list was not generated for locale ss_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale st
Country list was not generated for locale st_LS
Country list was not generated for locale st_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale tn
Country list was not generated for locale tn_BW
Country list was not generated for locale tn_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale ts
Country list was not generated for locale ts_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale ug_Arab_CN
Country list was not generated for locale ve
Country list was not generated for locale ve_ZA
Country list was not generated for locale vo
Country list was not generated for locale vo_001
Country list was not generated for locale xh
Country list was not generated for locale xh_ZA

My exact use case is: 
php console build cldr json -p /tmp/countries