Codes and Tags

For identifying languages, countries, scripts

1.  Introductory & explanatory materials

• "Language tags in HTML and XML" http://www.w3.org/International/articles/language-tags/Overview.en.php
• "Choosing a Language Tag" http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-choosing-language-tags
• RFC (request for comments) documents of the IETF
  • RFC 4645 "Initial Language Subtag Registry" (Informational RFC ) http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc4645/
  • RFC 4647 "Matching of Language Tags" (Informational RFC ) http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc4647/
  • RFC 5645 "Update to the Language Subtag Registry" (Best Current Practice RFC) http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5645/
  • RFC 5646 "Tags for Identifying Languages" (Best Current Practice RFC) http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5646/ (replaced RFC 4646)
• "Declare the Language" (Teaching and Learning with Technology, Penn State Univ. ) tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/web/tips/langtag.html (offline & somewhat dated, but otherwise good basic overview - access via http://www.archive.org/ )
• Wikipedia, "IETF language tag," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF_language_tag

2.  Language tags

• ISO-639-1&2 http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
  • Online look-up utility http://r12a.github.io/apps/subtags/
• ISO-639-3 http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp (also has parts 1, 2, & 5)
  • Macrolanguage mappings http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/macrolanguages.asp
• IANA registries
  • Language Subtag Registry http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry
    • BCP47 PHP Language Code Array https://gist.github.com/tonyhb/635401
  • Language Tag Extensions Registry http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-tag-extensions-registry
    • RFC6067 "BCP 47 Extension U" http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc6067.txt
    • RFC6497 "BCP 47 Extension T - Transformed Content" http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc6497.txt
  • Tags no longer in use
    • Language Tags - OBSOLETE http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-tags
    • Language Tags Directory - OBSOLETE http://www.iana.org/assignments/lang-tag-apps.htm

3.  Country (and regional) tags

• ISO-3166-1 (two-letter codes)
  • ISO Online Browsing Platform https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#search (select "Country codes" in left sidebar & language at top of page)
• UN M.49 (numerical codes for regions)

4.  Script tags

• ISO-15924

5.  Organisations

• IANA
• IETF
• ISO

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