View source for Social:ISO 639-1

{{Short description|Standard codes for identifying languages}}

'''ISO 639-1:2002''', ''Codes for the representation of names of languages—Part 1: Alpha-2 code'', is the first part of the [[ISO 639]] series of [[Organization:International Organization for Standardization|international standards]] for [[Language code|language code]]s. Part 1 covers the registration of "set 1" two-letter codes. There are 183 two-letter codes registered as of June 2021. The registered codes cover the world's major languages.

Some languages do not have the ISO 639-1 codes because the standard was initially designed to represent major and primary national languages with well-established terminologies and lexicography. The ISO 639-1 is more restrictive than other ISO 639 standards, such as ISO 639-2 as well as ISO 639-3, which cover a wider range of languages and variations. 

These codes are a useful international and formal shorthand for indicating languages.
<!--Please do not add additional examples unless they demonstrate a pattern not already shown in the table and it has been discussed on the talk page-->
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|+ Examples of ISO 639-1 codes
|-
! rowspan="2" | Code !! colspan="3" | ISO 639-1 language name !! rowspan="2" | Endonym
|-
! English !! French !! German
|-
| <code>en</code> || [[Social:English language|English]] || {{lang|fr|anglais|italic=no}} || {{lang|de|Englisch|italic=no}} || English <!--Example of a code using two consecutive letters of the English language name-->
|-
| <code>es</code> || [[Social:Spanish language|Spanish]] || {{lang|fr|espagnol|italic=no}} || {{lang|de|Spanisch|italic=no}} || {{lang|es|español|italic=no}} <!--Example of a code using two consecutive letters of the endonym (as well as a non-English ISO 639-1 language name)-->
|-
| <code>pt</code> || [[Social:Portuguese language|Portuguese]] || {{lang|fr|portugais|italic=no}} || {{lang|de|Portugiesisch|italic=no}} || {{lang|pt|português|italic=no}} <!--Example of a code using two nonconsecutive letters-->
|-
| <code>zh</code> || [[Social:Chinese language|Chinese]] || {{lang|fr|chinois|italic=no}} || {{lang|de|Chinesisch|italic=no}} || {{lang|zh|中文|italic=no}}, {{transl|zh|ISO|Zhōngwén|italic=no}}<!--Example of a code using letters from the transcription of an endonym-->
|}

Many multilingual web sites—such as [[Wikipedia]]—use these codes to prefix URLs of specific language versions of their web sites: for example, en.Wikipedia.org is the English version of Wikipedia. See also [[IETF language tag]]. (Two-letter country-specific top-level-domain code suffixes are often different from these language-tag prefixes).

ISO 639, the original standard for language codes, was approved in 1967. It was split into parts, and in 2002 ISO 639-1 became the new revision of the original standard. The last code added was <code>ht</code>, representing [[Social:Haitian Creole|Haitian Creole]] on 2003-02-26. The use of the standard was encouraged by [[IETF language tag]]s, introduced in RFC 1766 in March 1995, and continued by RFC 3066 from January 2001 and RFC 4646 from September 2006.  The current version is [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5646#ref-ISO639-1 RFC&nbsp;5646] from September 2009. Infoterm (International Information Center for Terminology) is the registration authority for ISO 639-1 codes.

New ISO 639-1 codes are not added if an [[Social:ISO 639-2|ISO 639-2]] "set 2" three-letter code exists, so systems that use ISO 639-1 and 639-2 codes, with 639-1 codes preferred, do not have to change existing codes.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/iso639jac_n3r.html ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee - Working principles for ISO 639 maintenance]</ref>

If an ISO 639-2 code that covers a group of languages is used, it might be overridden for some specific languages by a new ISO 639-1 code.

Part 3 (2007) of the standard, [[Social:ISO 639-3|ISO 639-3]], aiming to cover all known [[Philosophy:Natural language|natural language]]s, largely supersedes the [[Social:ISO 639-2|ISO 639-2]] three-letter code standard.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center; margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|+ ISO 639-1 codes added after RFC publication in January 2001
! ISO 639-1 !! ISO 639-2 !! Name !! Date added !! Previously covered by
|-
| <code>io</code> || <code>ido</code> || [[Ido]] || 2002-01-15<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-1/io.html|title=ISO639-1 Languages: Ido|publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> || <code>art</code>
|-
| <code>wa</code> || <code>wln</code> || Walloon || 2002-01-29<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-1/wa.html|title=ISO639-1 Languages: Walloon|publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> || <code>roa</code>
|-
| <code>li</code> || <code>lim</code> || [[Social:Limburgish|Limburgish]] || 2002-08-02<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-1/li.html|title=ISO639-1 Languages: Limburgan|publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> || <code>gem</code>
|-
| <code>ii</code> || <code>iii</code> || [[Social:Nuosu language|Sichuan Yi]] || 2002-10-14<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-1/ii.html|title=ISO639-1 Languages: Sichuan Yi|publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> || <code>sit</code>
|-
| <code>an</code> || <code>arg</code> || [[Social:Aragonese language|Aragonese]] || 2002-12-23<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-1/an.html|title=ISO639-1 Languages: Aragonese|publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> || <code>roa</code>
|-
| <code>ht</code> || <code>hat</code> || [[Social:Haitian Creole|Haitian Creole]] || 2003-02-26<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-1/ht.html|title=ISO639-1 Languages: Haitian|publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> || <code>cpf</code>
|}

There is no specification on treatment of [[Social:ISO 639 macrolanguage|macrolanguages]] (see [[Social:ISO 639-3|ISO 639-3]]).

==See also==
* Lists of ISO 639 codes
* [[ISO 3166-1 alpha-2]], a different set of two-letter codes used for countries

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/language_codes.htm ISO 639]
* [http://www.infoterm.info/standardization/iso_639_1_2002.php ISO 639-1/RA]
* [https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html#13 ISO 639-2 Registration Authority FAQ]

{{Footer ISO 639}}
{{ISO standards}}

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[[Category:ISO 639]]
[[Category:Language identifiers]]

{{Sourceattribution|ISO 639-1}}