Special language codes
The language of a Wikimedia wiki can be found in the lang="..." and xml:lang="..." attributes of the <html> element of each page (or other elements for specific subcontents in multilingual pages); they are also used for styling in CSS language selectors. These language codes should generally be canonical language tags as defined by BCP 47.
In most cases, the subdomain names that we use for projects correspond to language codes, but there are some exceptions that remain for historical reasons. For example, sometimes a valid ISO 639 or BCP 47 code was not yet available at the time of creation of the project.
As BCP 47 must keep existing codes for compatibility, deprecated or removed ISO 639 codes are still considered valid in BCP 47. However, to avoid various kinds of complications, they should not be used in new content. Please follow the recommendations listed in the tables below.
Subdomains that do not match their lang attribute
[edit]| Subdomain | Language | Project(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
als |
Local name: Alemannisch English name: Alemannic Language family: Germanic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote | Uses gsw which matches the language's ISO 639-3 code.
|
bh |
Local name: भोजपुरी English name: Bihari Language family: Indo-Aryan |
Wikipedia |
Ambiguous legacy code. Uses |
roa-rup |
Local name: armãneashti English name: Aromanian Language family: Italic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary | Uses rup which matches the language's ISO 639-3 code.
|
simple |
Local name: Simple English English name: Simple English Language family: Germanic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary | Uses en of ordinary English.
|
zh-classical |
Local name: 文言 English name: Classical Chinese Language family: Sinitic |
Wikipedia | Classical Chinese has ISO 639-3 code lzh.
|
zh-min-nan |
Local name: 閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gí English name: Minnan Language family: Sinitic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource | Min Nan has ISO 639-3 code nan.
|
zh-yue |
Local name: 粵語 English name: Cantonese Language family: Sinitic |
Wikipedia | Cantonese has ISO 639-3 code yue.
|
Miscellaneous:
- All subdomains of wikimedia.org
Subdomains that do not conform to a valid ISO 639 language code
[edit]| Subdomain | Language | Project(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
als |
Local name: Alemannisch English name: Alemannic Language family: Germanic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote |
Alemannic has ISO 639-3 code |
bat-smg |
Local name: žemaitėška English name: Samogitian Language family: Baltic |
Wikipedia |
Samogitian has the ISO 639 code |
cbk-zam |
Local name: Chavacano de Zamboanga English name: Chavacano de Zamboanga Language family: Pidgin and Creole |
Wikipedia |
Chavacano de Zamboanga has no ISO 639 code as an individual language. ISO 639-3 code |
eml |
Local name: emiliàn e rumagnòl English name: Emilian-Romagnol Language family: Italic |
Wikipedia |
ISO 639-3 code |
fiu-vro |
Local name: võro English name: Võro Language family: Finno-Permic |
Wikipedia |
Võro has ISO 639-3 code |
iu |
Local name: ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ / inuktitut English name: Inuktitut Language family: Eskimo-Aleut |
Wikipedia | ISO 639 considers iu/iku not a single language, but a macrolanguage comprising ike and ikt. MediaWiki agrees (see phabricator), but: falls back to ike, called ike-cans; adds ike-latn; has no ikt support. CLDR considers Cans an aspirational script.
|
ksh |
Local name: Ripoarisch English name: Ripuarian Language family: Germanic |
Wikipedia | ISO 639-3 code ksh is assigned to Kölsch, a subset of Ripuarian.
|
map-bms |
Local name: Basa Banyumasan English name: Banyumasan Language family: Sunda-Sulawesi |
Wikipedia | Banyumasan has no ISO 639 code as an individual language. ISO 639-1 code jv/jav is assigned to Javanese, a superset of Banyumasan.
|
nds-nl |
Local name: Nedersaksies English name: Dutch Low Saxon Language family: Germanic |
Wikipedia | Duplicated with Low German's nds.
|
nrm |
Local name: Nouormand English name: Norman Language family: Italic |
Wikipedia |
Norman has no ISO 639 code as an individual language (However, two dialects of Norman, Guernésiais and Jèrriais, are sharing ISO 639-3 code |
roa-rup |
Local name: armãneashti English name: Aromanian Language family: Italic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
Aromanian has ISO 639-3 code |
roa-tara |
Local name: tarandíne English name: Tarantino Language family: Italic |
Wikipedia | Tarantino has no ISO 639 code as an individual language. ISO 639-3 lumps it with Italian, as with most varieties of northern Italy. |
sh |
Local name: srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски English name: Serbo-Croatian Language family: Slavic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary | sh was originally the ISO 639-1 code for Serbo-Croatian, but it was deprecated in 2000. However, it remains a valid BCP 47 language tag. There is also the ISO 639-3 code hbs for Serbo-Croatian.
|
simple |
Local name: Simple English English name: Simple English Language family: Germanic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
Simple English has no ISO 639 code, but the registered IETF variant subtag |
zh-classical |
Local name: 文言 English name: Classical Chinese Language family: Sinitic |
Wikipedia |
Classical Chinese has ISO 639-3 code |
zh-min-nan |
Local name: 閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gí English name: Minnan Language family: Sinitic |
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource |
Min Nan has ISO 639-3 code |
zh-yue |
Local name: 粵語 English name: Cantonese Language family: Sinitic |
Wikipedia |
Cantonese has ISO 639-3 code |
Miscellaneous:
tokipona– defunct Wikipedia subdomain, now redirects to tok.wikipedia.org on the wiki's return.ru-sib– defunct Wikipedia subdomain, hoax in fictional “Siberian” languagebe-x-old– fixed and redirected tobe-taraskWikipedia subdomain (see phab:T11823)
Other distinctions
[edit]| Subdomain | Language | Project(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
ms |
Local name: Bahasa Melayu English name: Malay Language family: Sunda-Sulawesi |
Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary | Malay language used to be "ms", just like Indonesian language is "id", but since the Malay Wikipedia inception, the code "ms" has become the code for macro language (not individual language).
There are many individual languages under "ms"/"msa", including Indonesian ("id"/"ind"), Banjar ("bjn"), Minang ("min"), three living languages with their own Wikimedia projects, as well as Malay (individual language) ("mly"-Deprecated 2008 or "zlm"-Malay or "zsm"-Standard Malay / Malaysian Malay / Malaysian language) It should be noted that the Malay Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Wiktionary all predate the change in the language code in 18 February 2008, with the latest one, Malay Wikibooks, created on 24 August 2004. See also: |
ak |
Local name: ak English name: Akan Language family: Niger-Congo |
Closed: Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary | Akan (ak/aka in ISO 639-3) is a macrolanguage consisting of two separate languages Twi (tw) and Fante (fat). The Akan Wikipedia was closed in April 2023 as redundant to the Twi and Fante Wikipedias. Akan Wikibooks and Wiktionary also existed but were closed in 2007/2008 due to never having any content. |
de-formal |
Local name: Deutsch English name: German Language family: Germanic |
— | Not used as host names but included as pseudo-variant subtags (unregistered) for some translations in translatewiki.net (used in Meta-Wiki for pages like policies when referring directly to wiki users according to their preferences): we should have used a private-use extension |
nl-informal |
Local name: Nederlands English name: Dutch Language family: Germanic |
— |
Technical language code
[edit]The special language code qqx can be used to display the ids of all system messages used on a page.
See also
[edit]- Language code (in MediaWiki)
- Language codes (on this Meta-Wiki)
- Chapters per Wikimedia language
- Table of Wikimedia projects
- Phabricator task T21986: “Wikis waiting to be renamed (tracking)”
- Phabricator task T44396: “Duplicate/invalid language codes in Wikidata”
- CLDR language code aliases and Wikimedia codes missing