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

[Björn T.Hallberg]

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