[Typo3-dev] Use Language codes instead of Country codes

Kasper Skårhøj kasper at typo3.com
Sat May 15 14:33:29 CEST 2004


If you are talking about the backend of TYPO3 the language code is
irrelevant. "dk" is for danish but the important thing is that it is a
2-char code and it could just as well be "yu" - doesn't matter. Therfore
we will not change it of course because it will be a LOT of trouble
(doing this for 500+ extensions that multiple authors has to do
*syncronized*!) with NO significant gain. But it is admitted that it may
be confusing, but it poses not practical problem to us.

It is the same with the frontend where language labels are drawn from
the same place in TYPO3.

However, if you look at flexforms in TYPO3 there is the possibility to
have multiple translations of content - and there the codes are taken
from some ISO standard.

- kasper



On Sat, 2004-05-15 at 13:57, Björn T.Hallberg wrote:
> Hi Typo3 Developers!
> 
> I noticed that Typo3 uses Country codes instead of Language codes.
> For example dk is used instead of da for specifying the Danish language:
> dk = Denmark (ISO 3166)
> da = Danish (ISO 639)
> 
> I see that you are in the progress of rewriting the translation system and I thought now would be a good opportunity to suggest that you switch to ISO 639 Language Codes. Or at least strongly consider it.
> 
> By using country codes you might soon find yourself in trouble when you encounter a language that has no relation to one specific country, e.g. Catalan. What country code would you use for the Catalan language?
> http://www.fact-index.com/c/ca/catalan_language.html
> 
> Even phpMyAdmin made the same mistake from the beginning but changed to language codes a couple of years ago.
> 
> The country codes that are used in Typo3 and differ from the language codes are:
> dk Denmark - da Danish
> cz Czech Republic - cs Czech
> se Sweden - sv Swedish
> ch Switzerland!? - zh Chinese
> hl Greenland - kl Greenlandic
> gr Greece - el Greek
> hk Hong Kong - zh-hk Chinese (Hong Kong)
> br Brazil - pt-br Portuguese (Brazilian)
> ua Ukraine - uk Ukrainian
> jp Japan - ja Japanese
> vn Vietnam - vi Vietnamese
> 
> For the rest the country and language codes are the same.
> 
> ISO 3166 Country Codes:
> http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html
> 
> ISO 639 Language Codes:
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm
> 
> Additional Language Codes:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/language_codes.asp
> 
> Keep up the fantastic work!
> - Björn T. Hallberg
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Typo3-dev mailing list
> Typo3-dev at lists.netfielders.de
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-- 
God bless

- kasper

------

"To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence." -
Mark Twain.






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