/ 
Locale-Codes-3.00
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/ Locale::Language

NAME

Locale::Language - standard codes for language identification

SYNOPSIS

use Locale::Language;

$lang = code2language('en');        # $lang gets 'English'
$code = language2code('French');    # $code gets 'fr'

@codes   = all_language_codes();
@names   = all_language_names();

DESCRIPTION

The Locale::Language module provides access to standard codes used for identifying languages, such as those as defined in ISO 639.

You can either access the codes via the "conversion routines" (described below), or via the two functions which return lists of all language codes or all language names.

All of the routines take an optional additional argument which specifies the code set to use. If not specified, the default ISO 639 two-letter codes will be used.

LANGUAGE NAMES

Locale::Language supports variant names for countries.

Language names come from the standards, but common aliases are included (and others may be added). If you have a common alias for a language, let me know and I'll add it, with some restrictions.

SUPPORTED CODE SETS

There are many different code sets you can use for identifying languages. The ones currently supported are:

alpha-2

This is the set of two-letter (lowercase) codes from ISO 639, such as 'he' for Hebrew.

This code set is identified with the symbol LOCALE_LANG_ALPHA_2.

If no code set is specified in a call to any of the routines described below, it will default to this code set.

alpha-3

This is the set of three-letter (lowercase) bibliographic codes from ISO 639, such as 'heb' for Hebrew.

This code set is identified with the symbol LOCALE_LANG_ALPHA_3.

term

This is the set of three-letter (lowercase) terminologic codes from ISO 639.

This code set is identified with the symbol LOCALE_LANG_TERM.

CONVERSION ROUTINES

There are three conversion routines: code2language(), language2code(), and language_code2code().

code2language(CODE, [CODESET])

This function takes a two letter language code and returns a string which contains the name of the language identified. If the code is not a valid language code, as defined by ISO 639, then undef will be returned.

$lang = code2language($code);
language2code(NAME, [CODESET])

This function takes a language name and returns the corresponding two letter language code, if such exists. If the argument could not be identified as a language name, then undef will be returned.

$code = language2code('French');

The case of the language name is not important.

language_code2code( CODE, CODESET, CODESET )

This function takes a language code from one code set, and returns the corresponding code from another code set.

Both CODESETs must be explicitly entered.

language_code2code('aym', LOCALE_LANG_ALPHA_3,
                  LOCALE_LANG_ALPHA_2);
   => 'ay'

If the code passed is not a valid language code in the first code set, or if there isn't a code for the corresponding language in the second code set, then undef will be returned.

QUERY ROUTINES

There are two function which can be used to obtain a list of all language codes, or all language names:

all_language_codes( [CODESET] )

Returns a list of all language codes in the given code set.

all_language_names()

Returns a list of all language names for which there is a corresponding language code. The names returned are the names specified in the standard.

EXAMPLES

The following example illustrates use of the code2language() function. The user is prompted for a language code, and then told the corresponding language name:

$| = 1;    # turn off buffering

print "Enter language code: ";
chop($code = <STDIN>);
$lang = code2language($code);
if (defined $lang) {
    print "$code = $lang\n";
} else {
    print "'$code' is not a valid language code!\n";
}

KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

  • Currently, language names are in pure ASCII. I plan to relax that in the future.

  • I do not yet support the codes for ISO 639-3 (which has codes for all languages living or dead). I may add support in a future version.

SEE ALSO

Locale::Codes
Locale::Constants
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/

Source of the ISO 639 codes.

AUTHOR

See Locale::Codes for full author history.

Currently maintained by Sullivan Beck (sbeck@cpan.org).

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe (CRE).
Copyright (c) 2001-2010 Neil Bowers
Copyright (c) 2010-2010 Sullivan Beck

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.