| ISO_639 {ISOcodes} | R Documentation |
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) codes for the representation of languages. Consists of three parts, with more parts work in progress. ISO 639-1 consists of 185 two-letter (alpha-2) codes used to identify the world's major languages. ISO 639-2 has three-letter (alpha-3) codes for 485 languages. ISO 639-3 extends the ISO 639-2 alpha-3 codes with an aim to cover all known natural languages.
data("ISO_639_2")
data("ISO_639_3")
data("ISO_639_3_Retirements")
ISO_639_2 is a character data frame with variables
Alpha_3_B and Alpha_3_T (the ISO 639-2 bibliographic and
terminological codes), Alpha_2 (the corresponding ISO 639-1
alpha-2 code if available), and Name.
ISO_639_3 is a data frame with the following variables:
Id:Part2B:Part2T:Part1:Scope:"I" (Individual),
"M" (Macrolanguage) and "S" (Special).Type:"L" (Living
languages), "E" (Extinct languages), "A" (Ancient
languages), "H" (Historic languages), "C"
(Constructed languages), and "S" (Special).Name:Comment:
ISO_639_3_Retirements is a data frame giving the languages
retired from ISO 639-3, with variables:
Id:Ret_Reason:"C" (change),
"D" (duplicate), "N" (non-existent), "S"
(split), and "M" (merge).Change_To:Ret_Remedy:Effective:Date object giving the date
the retirement became effective.While most languages are given one code by the ISO 639-2 standard, twenty-two of the languages described have two three-letter codes, a “bibliographic” code (ISO 639-2/B, B-code), which is derived from the English name for the language and was a necessary legacy feature, and a “terminological” code (ISO 639-2/T, T-code), which is derived from the native name for the language. The range qaa-qtz is reserved for local use.
ISO 639-3 is a superset of ISO 639-1 and of the individual languages in ISO 639-2. ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 focused on major languages, most frequently represented in the total body of the world's literature. Since ISO 639-2 also includes language collections, whereas Part 3 does not, ISO 639-3 is not a superset of ISO 639-2. Where B and T codes exist in ISO 639-2, ISO 639-3 uses the T-codes.
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/ for ISO 639-2;
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/download.asp for ISO 639-3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639