ISO 639
167052
223326510
2008-07-03T16:06:40Z
Sl
126396
'''ISO 639''' is the set of [[International Organization for Standardization|international standards]] that lists short [[language code|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 It was also the name of the original standard, approved in 1967 and withdrawn in 2002.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 two parts have been approved and a third part that is in the final approval (FDIS) stage. The other parts are works in progress.
*[[ISO 639-1]]:2002 ''Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 1: Alpha-2 code''; [[List of ISO 639-1 codes]]
*[[ISO 639-2]]:1998 ''Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 code''; [[List of ISO 639-2 codes]]
*[[ISO 639-3]]:2007 ''Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages''; [[List of ISO 639-3 codes]]
*[[ISO 639-4|ISO/CD 639-4]]:2008? ''Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 4: Implementation guidelines and general principles for language coding''
*[[ISO 639-5]]:2008 ''Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 5: Alpha-3 code for language families and groups''; May 15, 2008
*[[ISO 639-6|ISO/CD 639-6]]:2008? ''Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 6: Alpha-4 representation for comprehensive coverage of language variation''
==Use of ISO 639 codes==
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]] [[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]]s for its different language editions.
==Alpha-2 code space==
"Alpha-2" codes (for codes composed of 2 letters of the [[Alphabets derived from the Latin#Basic Latin Alphabet|basic Latin alphabet]]) are used in [[ISO 639-1]]. Thus, there are <math>26^2=676</math> distinct Alpha-2 codes. This is clearly insufficient to cover all languages, which led to the creation of [[ISO 639-2]] and the use of Alpha-3 codes. <!--This could be worded better, acknowledging that 639-1 existed before -2, though the latter was formally published first-->
==Alpha-3 code space==
"Alpha-3" codes (for codes composed of 3 letters of the [[Alphabets derived from the Latin#Basic Latin Alphabet|basic Latin alphabet]]) are used in [[ISO 639-2]] and [[ISO 639-3]] and will eventually be used in [[ISO 639-5]]. Mathematically, the upper limit for the number of languages and language collections that can be so represented is <math>26^3=17,576</math>.
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 <code>mul</code>, <code>und</code>, <code>mis</code>, <code>zxx</code>, a reserved range <code>qaa-qtz</code> (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.
<!-- A further tighter upper limit can be calculated by subtracting the numbers of language collections from ISO 639-2. [Comment: This sentence appears in the article on ISO 639-3. If it is retained here, it might be rewritten to include in a broader overview of the Alpha-3 space. In general as I understand it, most 639-2 codes are also in 639-3, so the math here might be a little misleading.]-->
There are somewhere around six or seven thousand languages on Earth today[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_endangered_languages][http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=family]. 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 code space==
"Alpha-4" codes (for codes composed of 4 letters of the [[Alphabets derived from the Latin#Basic Latin Alphabet|basic Latin alphabet]]) is proposed to be used in ISO 639-6. Mathematically, the upper limit for the number of languages and dialects that can be so represented is <math>26^4=456,976</math>.
==See also==
*[[list of ISO 639-1 codes]]
*[[list of ISO 639-2 codes]]
*[[list of ISO 639-3 codes]]
*[[language code]]
*[[language families and languages]]
*[[list of languages]]
*[[list of official languages]]
*[[ISO 3166]] (codes for countries)
*[[ISO 15924]] (codes for [[writing system]]s)
*[[IETF language tag]]s (based on ISO 639)
==External links==
*[http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/ ISO 639-2 Registration Authority]
*[http://fara.cs.uni-potsdam.de/~georgk/639.xml XML version] of the official ISO 639-2 HTML data from the [[Library of Congress]]
*[http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/ ISO 639-3 Registration Authority]
*[http://www.ethnologue.com/iso639/ ISO 639 and the Ethnologue]
*[http://www.prato.linux.it/~lmasetti/seriamente/index.php?sez=materiali&subsect=iso639 Language codes in English and Italian] with Perl scripts for parsing and PHP code
*[http://www.bsi-global.com British Standards Institute]
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