Talk:List of ISO 639 language codes

message: I started expanding this list, but I've decided that I don't see the point, since I was just copying from List of ISO 639-2 codes which already includes all these.  Maybe it would be better to just maintain one list of ISO 639-1 and -2 codes.  I would even support calling it simply the List of ISO 639 codes and let ISO 639-3 be mentioned at the top as the draft that it is. Cpastern 03:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening heading 

message: Below is a list of "conflicts" between 2 letter language codes and country codes.  A conflict occurs when a country uses the same code as a language it does not actively use.   Theoretically, country and language codes
are orthogonal so the conflict does not exist, but practically, it could be 
a source of needless confusion.
  
2 letter3 letterLanguageCountry
afafr  AfrikaansAfghanistan
amamh  AmharicArmenia
arara  ArabicArgentina
asasm  AssameseAmerican Samoa
babak  BashkirBosnia and Herzegovina
bebel  ByelorussianBelgium
bhbih  BihariBahrain
bibis  BislamaBurundi
bnben  BengaliBrunei Darussalam
brbre  BretonBrazil
bobod/tibTibetanBolivia 
cacat  CatalanCanada
cocos  CorsicanColombia
cycym/wel  WelshCyprus
dzdzo  DzongkhaAlgeria
etest  EstonianEthiopia
gagai/iri  IrishGabon
glglg  GalleganGreenland
gngrn  GuaraniGuinea
guguj  GujaratiGuam
kmkhm  KhmerComoros
knkan  KannadaSaint Kitts and Nevis
kykir  KirghizCayman Islands
lalat  LatinLao People's Democratic Republic
mlmlt  MalteseMali
momol  MoldavianMacau
mrmar  MarathiMauritania
msmay/msaMalayMontserrat
mybur/myaBurmeseMalaysia
nanau  NauruNamibia
nenep  NepaliNiger
omorm  OromoOman
papan  PanjabiPunjab (India & Pakistan)
KsKAS  KashmiriKashmir (India Kashmir)
pspus  PushtoPalestinian Territories
sasan  SanskritSaudi Arabia
sdsnd  SindhiSudan
sgsag  SangoSingapore
shscr  Serbo-CroatianSt. Helena
sisin  SinghaleseSlovenia
slslv  SlovenianSierra Leone
smsmo  SamoanSan Marino
snsna  ShonaSenegal
stsot  Sotho, SouthernSao Tome and Principe
svsve/sweSwedishEl Salvador
tgtgk  TajikTogo
tktuk  TurkmenTokelau
tntsn  TswanaTunisia
tttat  TatarTrinidad and Tobago
twtwi  TwiTaiwan
uguig  UighurUganda
ukukr  UkrainianUnited Kingdom
vivie  VietnameseVirgin Islands (USA)
zazha  ZhuangSouth Africa
----------------------------
It is a derived table. The 3-letter code is not necessary as I didn't think they're relevant to the "conflicts". I think we should start a new page to put this table.--Hello World! 03:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The country code for the UK is GB, not UK.  This is probably the only situation in which "GB" is an abbreviation for "United Kingdom" (instead of "Great Britain"). (212.247.11.153 21:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  put to List of unrelated alpha-2 codes in ISO 639 and ISO 3166. TalkChat (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[meta:Language codes/Conflicts]]

message: Why spend time recreating the whole table when there is already one in meta? AbelCheung 23:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplication of work 

message: The end line of this page is still arabic, fixing appreciated. -Sox207 23:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arabic Crossover 

message: Someone combined mk and sl, probably political POV (the usual claim that Macedonia or Macedonian doesn't really exist). Whatever the POV, and whatever similarity there might or might not be, the fact is that ISO codes them separately; this article documents the fact(s) of the ISO coding. Fixed. Robert Ullmann (talk) 05:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  removed Macedonian/Slovenian POV 

message: For those watching this page: note that ISO is not assigning any more 2 letter codes. (To be precise, a 2 letter code will not be assigned to any language that already has a 3 letter code; since any language significant enough to have a 2 letter code is already coded in -3, it won't happen. Mind you, if ETs show up, we might need a code for Pan-Galactic or something ;-)
I've noted over the last months several separate attempts to "assign" new two letter codes by adding them here, to pages, to templates and pages in the wiktionary, etc. They are all bogus, and should be cleaned out. (Languages were Kadazandusun, Mazerandani, Gagauz, and Rusyn recently). Any additions/deletions from the list are almost certainly invalid. Robert Ullmann (talk) 12:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "new" ISO 639-1 codes 

message: Why isn't the title of this list List of ISO 639? --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson (talk) 12:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather suggest to change the lemma to List of ISO 639 language codes, please compare with the List of ISO 3166 country codes. Thus, the reader sees at first sight that one list is about language codes (in lower-case letters) and the other one on country codes (in upper-case letters). --Gunnar (talk) 10:38, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  List title 

message: I'm confused about the prices and copyright claim on the ISO website. For example: ISO 639-1:2002 lists the paper and PDF version of ISO 639-1:2002 for CHF 136, which is currently about US$ 120. ISO also has a copyright policy:
At the bottom of the page there is a link to a PDF document that explains some more stuff. Also International_Organization_for_Standardization#ISO_document_copyright states the copyright of ISO standards and also gives a list of free standards at Freely Available ISO Standards. ISO 639-1 is not one of them. Does Wikipedia own a general right or permission to reproduce the code lists?
Thinkstorm (talk) 13:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your questions are answered by the Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ ("Facts cannot be copyrighted.", "What should I do if I find a copyright violation on Wikipedia?", etc.). The pages that Wikipedia:Avoid copyright paranoia links to may also be relevant. --DavidCary (talk) 05:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright by ISO?! 

message: I had the problem to interpret the ISO 639-1 Codes to the language and to compare from different sources wether I found all codes. That others can save time and work I created an Excel-list of the codes in the first row and in the other rows I put the German, English and the translation of the actual language. You can get the list from my skydrive: cid-255ecac081b4c5f1.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/ISO|_639-1|_Codes.xls  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.42.126.240 (talk) 11:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getting Browser-Language from ISO 639-1 Code in PHP/HTML 

message: Placing the various ISO 639 codes within the middle of the table rather than at the extreme left-hand side is a visual improvement, but why is the table no longer sorted alphabetically on the ISO 639-1 key? Whoever has meddled with the ordering of the table has also overlooked the comment right at the head of the page, that the table data is sorted according to the ISO 639-1 code. Philip Legge User Email Talk 09:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The user that appears to have made those changes (Buhay Tao) has been blocked. I'm guessing he or she was trying to make this page more general. I think its purpose was to give the ISO code info -- the language family has nothing to do with that. I also miss the sorting capability: without it, we can't do two-way lookups. I'm tempted to be bold and revert to the version of January 27, but I'll ask here first. Thoughts? --Auntof6 (talk) 12:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  i believe it should be sorted by 639-1 codes. RZuo (talk) 18:39, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only do I think it should be sorted by 639-1 codes, I'd recommend moving the "ISO language name" column after the 639-3 code and before Notes. DRMcCreedy (talk) 02:33, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-ordering of the table? 

message: I suppose that it could be better if we merge the pages. For example, ISO 639-1 language matrix could be added as a second paragraph to the List of ISO 639-1 codes (along with its reference), since the former isn't too much of an article, but more of a simple linear table/list. Also, instead of starting a wikiwar about it, why don't we also link to  and [Template:ISO 639-1 language codes] in the same (merged) article. I believe that this is the optimal solution here. If you agree, I can merge the two articles in seconds. After the merging it's up to adminstrators to delete the matrix article... What do you think? --Ve4ernik (talk) 09:50, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it was a bad idea. Not a official sources are used to compile these listings (latvian if full of mistakes, I don't know about other languages). Should be removed. --Kikos (talk) 09:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe you are right for the current time, but in the future (when the language matrix article is more polished), I still think that the articles should be merged as explained above. --Ve4ernik (talk) 13:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No! Such matrix is not part of ISO. --Kikos (talk) 15:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Second proposal for merging

message: The left side of this table has all kinds of colors - green, red, yellow, black.  What are they for?  Can someone please add a legend or something or remove the colors?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.83.3.210 (talk) 14:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The colors represent the language groups in the column next to it. Green = Indo-European, yelllow = Afro-Asiatic, black = constructed, etc. SiBr4 14:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering as well. Could someone please add al legend for those colors?--Sajoch (talk) 12:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the colors? 

message: I'd like to include Ancient Greek, which has 639-2 and 639-3 codes (both "grc"), but no 639-a code that I can find. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we include languages with no ISO 639-1 code? 

message: The word "language / tongue" is integral to the names of Slavic languages, e.g. język polski, Russian, Slovak, etc., just as it is for Austronesian languages, like Malay?
I can say the "English language" or el "idioma español", but that does not make the word itself part of the name in ordinary usage.
Varlaam (talk) 17:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavic language names 

message: In the native language heading, some items are not capitalized. Is this the preferred presentation in each native language?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fulldecent (talk • contribs) 18:11, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. In certain languages, for example French, language names are uncapitalized (anglais, français, etc.). --SiBr4 14:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization 

message: I was looking for the code for the Lango language of Uganda and it's not listed, yet the first line of the article reads, "ISO 639 is a standardized nomenclature used to classify all known languages". If it's for all known languages, why are all languages listed? Is it because there are too many, or because the codes have been established only for major languages, or something else? DBlomgren (talk) 11:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe this is a question you should ask the relevant technical committee members at ISO, not the people here who just describe the content of ISO 639, or part 1 respectively. --Gunnar (talk) 10:52, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why aren't all known languages listed? 

message: The Pontic Greek is missing in this table. The 3 letter code is PNT, but no clue the 2-letter code. 85.58.233.13 (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pontic Greek missing 

message: Both Slovak and Saraiki list sk as their 2-letter code.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.210.68.138 (talk) 16:08, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate 2-letter code 

message: I'm not sure if this should go here, but there seems to be a bug in the wiki which renders "cu" as Chamorro instea of Old Church Slavonic: e.g. lang-cu () vs lang-chu () vs lang-ch ()
--BerislavLopac (talk) 15:51, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are at the wrong page to solve this issue. This is the Wikipedia page about the ISO 639-1 code, not concerning the internal implementation of the ISO 639-1 code. I would recommend going to Template_talk:ISO_639_name or Template talk:Lang  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dondville (talk • contribs) 17:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

text: Thanks for pointing this out, . This was due to a typo in a recent edit to Template:lang-cu: the whole family of lang-xx templates are currently being switched over to Lua, so occasional hiccups like this are almost inevitable. I've fixed that now, although it might take several days until the change gets propagated to all articles that  is used on. If you'd like a certain article to display properly immediately, you can just make a null edit to it. – Uanfala (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rendering error: cu as Chamorro 

message: I am unable to find confirmation that there is an ISO 639-1 code "fl" for Filipino. No such code is mentioned by the Library of Congress, nor by SIL, and a Wikipedia search for ISO 639:fl yields no positive result either. (To be sure, our article Filipino language can be retrieved via ISO 639:fil.)
If no one else can confirm its existence "fl" must be removed from this list, otherwise it must be added to the  template of the language article. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 01:07, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I just checked the IANA Language Subtag Registry which contains all ISO 639-1 codes and has a stability policy that guarantees that no code will ever be deleted even after withdrawel from the ISO standard it was taken from. Again, no such code. I'm going to remove Filipino from the list now. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:01, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there an ISO 639-1 code "fl" for Filipino? 

message: There are color-definition inconsistencies with the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family . Should colors on this page (if kept) be adjusted to match?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.160.93 (talk) 00:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I made the colors match. Akeosnhaoe (talk) 15:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language Family color 

message: Just notifying the editors of a discrepancy with the source.
The source is linked as: https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
Comparing this page with that, at the time of writing there are 184 codes there, and 183 here. The one present there which seems to be missing here is bh, "Bihari". 88.97.99.237 (talk) 16:54, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discrepancy with the linked source at loc.gov 

message: Since the latest edition, published in November 2023, there are no different parts, but the whole series has been merged into a single document, which contains different sets. --Gunnar (talk) 11:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  No different ISO 639 parts anymore 

message: Unknown language name.
Try to send me its two-letter or three-letter ISO code instead of the ISO language name. 2409:40F2:104B:D5BD:8000:0:0:0 (talk) 19:14, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unknown language name. Try to send me its two-letter or three-letter ISO code instead of the ISO language name.