Locales

In software, a locale specifies a choice of language-, country-, and culture-specific ways of representing common kinds of information, specifically

• time: 2:00 PM vs. 14:00
• dates: 3/2/2006 vs. 2006-3-2
• numbers: 1,000,000.1 vs. 1.000.000,1
• currency: $100 vs. USD100
• character set and encoding: extended ASCII vs. Unicode UTF-8
• measurements: US vs. SI (metric)

Locale names are commonly constructed from abbreviations for countries and languages, sometimes with character set appended. For example, en-us.utf8 specifies conventions appropriate to US English, with Unicode character set in UTF-8 encoding. The en-us locale differs on many but not all points from en-gb (Great Britain) or en-ca (Canada) and so on. All of these are significantly different from hi-in (Hindi in India) or zh-tw (Traditional Chinese in Taiwain).

The best source for locale data is the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR)

Mandriva Linux has the following locale support.

#- key: lang name (locale name for some (~5) special cases needing
#-      extra distinctions)
#- [0]: lang name in english
#- [1]: transliterated locale name in the locale name (used for sorting)
#- [2]: default locale name to use for that language if there is not
#-      an existing locale for the combination language+country choosen
#- [3]: geographic groups that this language belongs to (for displaying
#-      in the menu grouped in smaller lists), 1=Europe, 2=Asia, 3=Africa,
#-      4=Oceania&Pacific, 5=America (if you wonder, it's the order
#-      used in the olympic flag)
#- [4]: special value for LANGUAGE variable (if different of the default
#-      of 'll_CC:ll_DD:ll' (ll_CC: locale (if exist) resulting of the
#-      combination of chosen lang (ll) and country (CC), ll_DD: the
#-      default locale shown here (field [2]) and ll: the language (the key))
our %langs = (
'af' =>    [ 'Afrikaans',           'Afrikaans',         'af_ZA', '  3  ', 'iso-8859-1' ],
'am' =>    [ 'Amharic',             'ZZ emarNa',         'am_ET', '  3  ', 'utf_ethi' ],
'ar' =>    [ 'Arabic',              'AA Arabic',         'ar_EG', ' 23  ', 'utf_ar' ],
'as' =>    [ 'Assamese',            'ZZ Assamese',       'as_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_beng' ],
'az' =>    [ 'Azeri (Latin)',       'Azerbaycanca',      'az_AZ', ' 2   ', 'utf_az' ],
'be' =>    [ 'Belarussian',         'Belaruskaya',       'be_BY', '1    ', 'utf_cyr1' ],
'ber' =>   [ 'Berber',              'ZZ Tamazight',      'ber_MA', '  3  ', 'utf_tfng', 'ber_MA:ber:fr' ],
'bg' =>    [ '[[Bulgarian',           'Blgarski',          'bg_BG', '1    ', 'cp1251' ],
'bn' =>    [ 'Bengali',             'ZZ Bengali',        'bn_BD', ' 2   ', 'utf_beng' ],
#- bo_CN not yet done, using dz_BT locale instead
'bo' =>    [ 'Tibetan',             'ZZ Bod skad',       'dz_BT', ' 2   ', 'utf_tibt', 'bo' ],
'br' =>    [ 'Breton',              'Brezhoneg',         'br_FR', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15', 'br:fr_FR:fr' ],
'bs' =>    [ 'Bosnian',             'Bosanski',          'bs_BA', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'ca' =>    [ 'Catalan',             'Catala',            'ca_ES', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15', 'ca:es_ES:es' ],
'ca@valencian' =>  [ 'Catalan (Valencian)', 'Catala (Valencia)', 'ca_ES', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15', 'ca_ES@valencian:ca@valencian:ca:es_ES:es' ],
'cs' =>    [ 'Czech',               'Cestina',           'cs_CZ', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'cy' =>    [ 'Welsh',               'Cymraeg',           'cy_GB', '1    ', 'utf_lat8',    'cy:en_GB:en' ],
'da' =>    [ 'Danish',              'Dansk',             'da_DK', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'de' =>    [ 'German',              'Deutsch',           'de_DE', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'dz' =>    [ 'Buthanese',           'ZZ Dzhonka',        'dz_BT', ' 2   ', 'utf_tibt' ],
'el' =>    [ 'Greek',               'Ellynika',          'el_GR', '1    ', 'iso-8859-7' ],
'en_GB' => [ 'English',             'English',           'en_GB', '12345', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'en_US' => [ 'English (American)', 'English (American)', 'en_US', '    5', 'C' ],
'en_IE' => [ 'English (Ireland)',   'English (Ireland)', 'en_IE', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15', 'en_IE:en_GB:en' ],
'eo' =>    [ 'Esperanto',           'Esperanto',         'eo_XX', '12345', 'unicode' ],
'es' =>    [ 'Spanish',             'Espanol',           'es_ES', '1 3 5', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'et' =>    [ 'Estonian',            'Eesti',             'et_EE', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'eu' =>    [ 'Euskara (Basque)',    'Euskara',           'eu_ES', '1    ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'fa' =>    [ 'Farsi (Iranian)',     'AA Farsi',          'fa_IR', ' 2   ', 'utf_ar' ],
'fi' =>    [ 'Finnish (Suomi)',     'Suomi',             'fi_FI', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15' ],
#- 'tl' in priority position for now, as 'fil' is not much used.
#- Monolingual window managers will not see the menus otherwise
'fil' =>   [ 'Filipino',            'Filipino',          'fil_PH', ' 2   ', 'utf_lat1',  'tl:fil' ],
'fo' =>    [ 'Faroese',             'Foroyskt',          'fo_FO', '1    ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'fr' =>    [ 'French',              'Francais',          'fr_FR', '1 345', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'fur' =>   [ 'Furlan',              'Furlan',            'fur_IT', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'fur:it_IT:it' ],
'fy' =>    [ 'Frisian',             'Frysk',             'fy_NL', '1    ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'ga' =>    [ 'Gaelic (Irish)',      'Gaeilge',           'ga_IE', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'ga:en_IE:en_GB:en' ],
#'gd' =>   [ 'Gaelic (Scottish)',   'Gaidhlig',          'gd_GB', '1    ', 'utf_lat8',    'gd:en_GB:en' ],
'gl' =>    [ 'Galician',            'Galego',            'gl_ES', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15', 'gl:es_ES:es:pt:pt_BR' ],
#- gn_PY not yet done, using es_PY locale instead
'gn' =>    [ 'Guarani',             'Avane-e',           'es_PY', '    5', 'utf_lat1',    'gn:es_PY:es' ],
'gu' =>    [ 'Gujarati',            'ZZ Gujarati',       'gu_IN', ' 2   ', 'unicode' ],
#'gv' =>   [ 'Gaelic (Manx)',       'Gaelg',             'gv_GB', '1    ', 'utf_lat8',    'gv:en_GB:en' ],
'ha' =>    [ 'Hausa',               'Hausa',             'ha_NG', '  3  ', 'utf_yo', 'ha:en_NG' ],
'he' =>    [ 'Hebrew',              'AA Ivrit',          'he_IL', ' 2   ', 'utf_he' ],
'hi' =>    [ 'Hindi',               'ZZ Hindi',          'hi_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_deva' ],
'hr' =>    [ 'Croatian',            'Hrvatski',          'hr_HR', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'hu' =>    [ 'Hungarian',           'Magyar',            'hu_HU', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'hy' =>    [ 'Armenian',            'ZZ Armenian',       'hy_AM', ' 2   ', 'utf_armn' ],
# locale not done yet
#'ia' =>   [ 'Interlingua',         'Interlingua',       'ia_XX', '1   5', 'utf_lat1' ],
'id' =>    [ 'Indonesian',          'Bahasa Indonesia',  'id_ID', ' 2   ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'ig' =>    [ 'Igbo',                'Igbo',              'ig_NG', '  3  ', 'utf_yo', 'ig:en_NG' ],
'is' =>    [ 'Icelandic',           'Islenska',          'is_IS', '1    ', 'iso-8859-1' ],
'it' =>    [ 'Italian',             'Italiano',          'it_IT', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'iu' =>    [ 'Inuktitut',           'ZZ Inuktitut',      'iu_CA', '    5', 'utf_iu' ],
'ja' =>    [ 'Japanese',            'ZZ Nihongo',        'ja_JP', ' 2   ', 'jisx0208' ],
'ka' =>    [ 'Georgian',            'ZZ Georgian',       'ka_GE', ' 2   ', 'utf_geor' ],
'kk' =>    [ 'Kazakh',              'Kazak',             'kk_KZ', ' 2   ', 'utf_cyr2' ],
'kl' =>    [ 'Greenlandic (inuit)', 'Kalaallisut',       'kl_GL', '    5', 'utf_lat1' ],
'km' =>    [ 'Khmer',               'ZZ Khmer',          'km_KH', ' 2   ', 'utf_khmr' ],
'kn' =>    [ 'Kannada',             'ZZ Kannada',        'kn_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_knda' ],
'ko' =>    [ 'Korean',              'ZZ Korea',          'ko_KR', ' 2   ', 'ksc5601' ],
'ku' =>    [ 'Kurdish',             'Kurdi',             'ku_TR', ' 2   ', 'utf_lat5' ],
#-'kw' =>  [ 'Cornish',             'Kernewek',          'kw_GB', '1    ', 'utf_lat8',    'kw:en_GB:en' ],
'ky' =>    [ 'Kyrgyz',              'Kyrgyz',            'ky_KG', ' 2   ', 'utf_cyr2' ],
#- lb_LU not yet done, using de_LU locale instead
'lb' =>    [ '[[Luxembourgish',       'Letzebuergesch',    'de_LU', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'lb:de_LU' ],
'li' =>    [ 'Limbourgish',         'Limburgs',          'li_NL', '1    ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'lo' =>    [ 'Laotian',             'Laotian',           'lo_LA', ' 2   ', 'utf_laoo' ],
'lt' =>    [ 'Lithuanian',          'Lietuviskai',       'lt_LT', '1    ', 'iso-8859-13' ],
#- ltg_LV locale not done yet, using lv_LV for now
#- "ltg" is not a standard lang code, ISO-639 code was refused;
#- LTG_LV should be used instead (uppercase is for non-standard
#- langcodes, as defined by locale naming standard
'ltg' =>   [ 'Latgalian',           'Latgalisu',         'lv_LV', '1    ', 'utf_lat7', 'ltg:LTG:lv' ],
#'lu' =>    [ 'Luganda',             'Luganda',           'lg_UG', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'lv' =>    [ 'Latvian',             'Latviesu',          'lv_LV', '1    ', 'iso-8859-13' ],
'mi' =>    [ 'Maori',               'Maori',             'mi_NZ', '   4 ', 'utf_lat7' ],
'mk' =>    [ 'Macedonian',          'Makedonski',        'mk_MK', '1    ', 'utf_cyr1' ],
'ml' =>    [ 'Malayalam',           'ZZ Malayalam',      'ml_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_mlym' ],
'mn' =>    [ 'Mongolian',           'Mongol',            'mn_MN', ' 2   ', 'utf_cyr2' ],
'mr' =>    [ 'Marathi',             'ZZ Marathi',        'mr_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_deva' ],
'ms' =>    [ 'Malay',               'Bahasa Melayu',     'ms_MY', ' 2   ', 'utf_lat1' ],
'mt' =>    [ 'Maltese',             'Maltin',            'mt_MT', '1 3  ', 'unicode' ],
#- "my_MM" not yet done, using "en_US" for now
'my' =>    [ 'Burmese',             'ZZ Bamaca',         'en_US', ' 2   ', 'utf_mymr', 'my_MM:my' ],
'nb' =>    [ 'Norwegian Bokmaal',   'Norsk, Bokmal',     'nb_NO', '1    ', 'iso-8859-1',  'nb:no' ],
'nds' =>   [ 'Low Saxon',           'Platduutsch',       'nds_DE', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'nds_DE:nds' ],
'ne' =>    [ 'Nepali',              'ZZ Nepali',         'ne_NP', ' 2   ', 'utf_deva' ],
'nl' =>    [ 'Dutch',               'Nederlands',        'nl_NL', '1    ', 'iso-8859-15' ],
'nn' =>    [ 'Norwegian Nynorsk',   'Norsk, Nynorsk',    'nn_NO', '1    ', 'iso-8859-1',  'nn:no@nynorsk:no_NY:no:nb' ],
'nr' =>    [ 'Ndebele',             'IsiNdebele',        'nr_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'nr:en_ZA' ],
'nso' =>   [ 'Northern Sotho',      'Sesotho sa Leboa',  'nso_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'st:nso:en_ZA' ],
'oc' =>    [ 'Occitan',             'Occitan',           'oc_FR', '1    ', 'utf_lat1',  'oc:fr_FR:fr' ],
'pa_IN' => [ 'Punjabi (gurmukhi)',  'ZZ Punjabi',        'pa_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_guru' ],
'pl' =>    [ 'Polish',              'Polski',            'pl_PL', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'pt' =>    [ 'Portuguese',          'Portugues',         'pt_PT', '1 3  ', 'iso-8859-15', 'pt_PT:pt:pt_BR' ],
'pt_BR' => [ 'Portuguese Brazil', 'Portugues do Brasil', 'pt_BR', '    5', 'iso-8859-1',  'pt_BR:pt_PT:pt' ],
#- qu_PE not yet done, using es_PE locale instead
'qu' =>    [ 'Quichua',             'Runa Simi',         'es_PE', '    5', 'utf_lat1', 'qu:es_PE:es' ],
'ro' =>    [ 'Romanian',            'Romana',            'ro_RO', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'ru' =>    [ 'Russian',             'Russkij',           'ru_RU', '12   ', 'koi8-u' ],
'rw' =>    [ 'Kinyarwanda',         'Kinyarwanda',       'rw_RW', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'rw' ],
'sc' =>    [ 'Sardinian',           'Sardu',             'sc_IT', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'sc:it_IT:it' ],
'se' =>    [ 'Saami',               'Samegiella',        'se_NO', '1    ', 'unicode' ], 
'sk' =>    [ 'Slovak',              'Slovencina',        'sk_SK', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'sl' =>    [ 'Slovenian',           'Slovenscina',       'sl_SI', '1    ', 'iso-8859-2' ],
'so' =>    [ 'Somali',              'Soomaali',          'so_SO', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1' ], 
'sq' =>    [ 'Albanian',            'Shqip',             'sq_AL', '1    ', 'iso-8859-1' ], 
'sr' =>    [ 'Serbian Cyrillic',    'Srpska',            'sr_CS', '1    ', 'utf_cyr1', 'sp:sr' ],
#- "sh" comes first, because otherwise, due to the way glibc does language
#- fallback, if "sr@Latn" is not there but a "sr" (whichs uses cyrillic)
#- is there, "sh" will never be used.
'sr@Latn' => [ 'Serbian Latin]]',     'Srpska',            'sr_CS', '1    ', 'unicode',  'sh:sr@Latn' ], 
'ss' =>    [ 'Swati',               'SiSwati',           'ss_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'ss:en_ZA' ],
'st' =>    [ 'Sotho',               'Sesotho',           'st_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'st:nso:en_ZA' ],
'sv' =>    [ 'Swedish',             'Svenska',           'sv_SE', '1    ', 'iso-8859-1' ],
'ta' =>    [ 'Tamil',               'ZZ Tamil',          'ta_IN', ' 2   ', 'utf_taml' ],
'te' =>    [ 'Telugu',              'ZZ Telugu',         'te_IN', ' 2   ', 'unicode' ],
'tg' =>    [ 'Tajik',               'Tojiki',            'tg_TJ', ' 2   ', 'utf_cyr2' ],
'th' =>    [ 'Thai',                'ZZ Thai',           'th_TH', ' 2   ', 'tis620' ],
'tk' =>    [ 'Turkmen',             'Turkmence',         'tk_TM', ' 2   ', 'utf_az' ],
'tn' =>    [ 'Tswana',              'Setswana',          'tn_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'tn:en_ZA' ],
'tr' =>    [ 'Turkish',             'Turkce',            'tr_TR', '12   ', 'iso-8859-9' ],
'ts' =>    [ 'Tsonga',              'Xitsonga',          'ts_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'ts:en_ZA' ],
'tt' =>    [ 'Tatar',               'Tatarca',           'tt_RU', ' 2   ', 'utf_lat5' ],
'ug' =>    [ 'Uyghur',              'AA Uyghur',         'ug_CN', ' 2   ', 'utf_ar', 'ug' ],  
'uk' =>    [ 'Ukrainian',           'Ukrayinska',        'uk_UA', '1    ', 'koi8-u' ],
'ur' =>    [ 'Urdu',                'AA Urdu',           'ur_PK', ' 2   ', 'utf_ar' ],  
'uz@Latn' => [ 'Uzbek (latin)',     'Ozbekcha',          'uz_UZ', ' 2   ', 'utf_cyr2', 'uz@Latn:uz' ],
'uz' =>    [ 'Uzbek (cyrillic)',    'Ozbekcha',          'uz_UZ', ' 2   ', 'utf_cyr2', 'uz@Cyrl:uz' ],
've' =>    [ 'Venda',               'Tshivenda',         've_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 've:ven:en_ZA' ],
'vi' =>    [ 'Vietnamese',          'Tieng Viet',        'vi_VN', ' 2   ', 'utf_vi' ],
'wa' =>    [ 'Walon',               'Walon',             'wa_BE', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'wa:fr_BE:fr' ],
#- locale "wen_DE" not done yet, using "de_DE" instead
#- wen disabled until we have a perl-install/pixmaps/langs/lang-wen.png for it
#'wen' =>   [ 'Sorbian',             'Sorbian',           'de_DE', '1    ', 'utf_lat1', 'wen' ],
'xh' =>    [ 'Xhosa',               'IsiXhosa',          'xh_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'xh:en_ZA' ],
'yi' =>    [ 'Yiddish',             'AA Yidish',         'yi_US', '1    ', 'utf_he' ],
'yo' =>    [ 'Yoruba',              'Yoruba',            'yo_NG', '  3  ', 'utf_yo', 'yo:en_NG' ],
'zh_CN' => [ 'Chinese Simplified',  'ZZ ZhongWen',       'zh_CN', ' 2   ', 'gb2312',      'zh_CN.GBK:zh_CN.GB2312:zh_CN:zh' ],
'zh_TW' => [ 'Chinese Traditional', 'ZZ ZhongWen',       'zh_TW', ' 2   ', 'Big5',        'zh_TW.Big5:zh_TW:zh_HK:zh' ],
'zu' =>    [ 'Zulu',                 'IsiZulu',          'zu_ZA', '  3  ', 'utf_lat1', 'xh:en_ZA' ],