ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which two parts are currently published. The other parts are works in progress.
There are two items for ISO 639:
- ISO 639-1:2002 Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 1: Alpha-2 code
- ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 code
In other words, there are two-letter codes and three-letter codes. Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes. For these languages, the first three-letter code is for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B), and the second three-letter code is for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T).
The following parts are still being developed:
-
ISO 639-3:2006? Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages [1]
- ISO 639-4 :2007? Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 4: Implementation guidelines and general principles for language coding
- ISO 639-5 :2006? Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 5: Alpha-3 code for language families and groups
ISO 639-2
Two codes for special situations are defined (mul
, und
) in the normativ text. Additionally a code for Miscellaneous languages (mis
) is defined in the list of codes.
The following incomplete list is sorted by language name in the third column.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
Alpha-3 |
Alpha-2 |
Language name |
que |
qu |
Quechua
|
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Alpha-3 |
Alpha-2 |
Language name |
xho |
xh |
Xhosa
|
Y
Alpha-3 |
Alpha-2 |
Language name |
sah |
|
Yakut
|
yao |
|
Yao |
yap |
|
Yapese |
iii |
ii |
Yi
|
yid |
yi |
Yiddish
|
yor |
yo |
Yoruba
|
ypk |
|
Yupik |
Z
See also
External links