Network Working Group H. Alvestrand
Request for Comments: 1766 UNINETT
Category: Standards Track March 1995
Tags for the Identification of Languages
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document describes a language tag for use in cases where it is
desired to indicate the language used in an information object.
It also defines a Content-language: header, for use in the case where
one desires to indicate the language of something that has RFC-822-
like headers, like MIME body parts or Web documents, and a new
parameter to the Multipart/Alternative type, to aid in the usage of
the Content-Language: header.
1. Introduction
There are a number of languages spoken by human beings in this world.
A great number of these people would prefer to have information
presented in a language that they understand.
In some contexts, it is possible to have information in more than one
language, or it might be possible to provide tools for assisting in
the understanding of a language (like dictionaries).
A prerequisite for any such function is a means of labelling the
information content with an identifier for the language in which is
is written.
In the tradition of solving only problems that we think we
understand, this document specifies an identifier mechanism, and one
possible use for it.
Alvestrand [Page 1]RFC 1766 Language Tag March 19952. The Language tag
The language tag is composed of 1 or more parts: A primary language
tag and a (possibly empty) series of subtags.
The syntax of this tag in RFC-822 EBNF is:
Language-Tag = Primary-tag *( "-" Subtag )
Primary-tag = 1*8ALPHA
Subtag = 1*8ALPHA
Whitespace is not allowed within the tag.
All tags are to be treated as case insensitive; there exist
conventions for capitalization of some of them, but these should not
be taken to carry meaning.
The namespace of language tags is administered by the IANA according
to the rules in section 5 of this document.
The following registrations are predefined:
In the primary language tag:
- All 2-letter tags are interpreted according to ISO standard
639, "Code for the representation of names of languages" [ISO
639].
- The value "i" is reserved for IANA-defined registrations
- The value "x" is reserved for private use. Subtags of "x"
will not be registered by the IANA.
- Other values cannot be assigned except by updating this
standard.
The reason for reserving all other tags is to be open towards new
revisions of ISO 639; the use of "i" and "x" is the minimum we can do
here to be able to extend the mechanism to meet our requirements.
In the first subtag:
- All 2-letter codes are interpreted as ISO 3166 alpha-2
country codes denoting the area in which the language is
used.
- Codes of 3 to 8 letters may be registered with the IANA by
anyone who feels a need for it, according to the rules in
Alvestrand [Page 2]RFC 1766 Language Tag March 1995
chapter 5 of this document.
The information in the subtag may for instance be:
- Country identification, such as en-US (this usage is
described in ISO 639)
- Dialect or variant information, such as no-nynorsk or en-
cockney
- Languages not listed in ISO 639 that are not variants of
any listed language, which can be registered with the i-
prefix, such as i-cherokee
- Script variations, such as az-arabic and az-cyrillic
In the second and subsequent subtag, any value can be registered.
NOTE: The ISO 639/ISO 3166 convention is that language names are
written in lower case, while country codes are written in upper case.
This convention is recommended, but not enforced; the tags are case
insensitive.
NOTE: ISO 639 defines a registration authority for additions to and
changes in the list of languages in ISO 639. This authority is:
datatracker.ietf.org