Languages

This page looks at languages in terms of need in target countries, and availability in Linux.

Official Languages of Target Countries

Data on official languages from both

• Wikipedia Official Languages by Country
• Ethnologue

These sources often do not agree. The view on this page is that the more inclusive definition should be used, combining languages on both lists. Even if a language listed here is not formally adopted as an official language in the country of use, it is important enough for our purposes.

• Argentina
  • Spanish
  • Guarani (Corrientes and Misiones)

National or official language: Spanish.

Living languages: 25

• Brazil
  • Portuguese

National or official language: Portuguese.

Living languages: 188

• China, People's Republic of
  • Cantonese (de facto in Hong Kong and Macau)
  • English (in Hong Kong)
  • Kazakh (in Ili Kazakh)
  • Korean (in Changbai and Yanbian)
  • Mandarin (locally know as Putonghua) (statewide, except in Hong Kong and Macau where it has de facto official status)
  • Mongolian (in Inner Mongolia)
  • Portuguese (in Macau)
  • Tajik (in Taxkorgan)
  • Tibetan (in Tibet)
  • Uyghur (in Xinjiang)
  • Zhuang (in Guangxi)

National or official languages: Mandarin Chinese, regional languages: Daur, Kalmyk-Oirat, Lu, Peripheral Mongolian, Central Tibetan, Uyghur, Xibe, Northern Zhuang.

Living languages: 235

• Egypt
  • Arabic

National or official languages: Standard Arabic, Egyptian Spoken Arabic.

Living languages: 11

• India
  • Assamese (in Assam)
  • Bengali (in Tripura and West Bengal)
  • Bodo (in Assam)
  • Dogri (in Jammu and Kashmir)
  • English (statewide)
  • Gujarati (in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, and Gujarat)
  • Hindi (statewide)
  • Kannada (in Karnataka)
  • Kashmiri (in Jammu and Kashmir)
  • Konkani (in Goa)
  • Maithili (in Bihar)
  • Malayalam (in Kerala, Pondicherry and Lakshadweep)
  • Meitei (in Manipur)
  • Marathi (in Maharashtra)
  • Nepali (in Sikkim)
  • Oriya (in Orissa)
  • Punjabi (in Punjab)
  • Sanskrit (statewide)
  • Santali (in Jharkhand)
  • Sindhi (in Jammu and Kashmir)
  • Tamil (in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry)
  • Telugu (in Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry)
  • Urdu (in Jammu and Kashmir)
  • French (Only in Pondicherry Union Territory)

There are 22 official 'scheduled' languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Meitei, Nepali, Oriya, Eastern Panjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu.

Living languages: 415

• Libya
  • Arabic

National or official language: Standard Arabic.

Living languages: 9

• Nigeria
  • English
  • Hausa (national)
  • Yoruba (national)
  • Igbo (national)

National or official languages: Edo, Efik, Adamawa Fulfulde, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Central Kanuri, Yoruba, English.

Living languages: 510

• Thailand
  • Thai

National or official language: Thai.

Living languages: 74

Languages in Target Countries

Lists of languages of countries in discussions with OLPC, with links to priorities and status of OLPC-related language work in each, where available. All of these languages except Mongolian in its traditional alphabet can be entered, viewed, and printed in most distributions of Linux. Language support from one distribution can be easily added to almost any other. There are local OLPC organizations in several other countries.

Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba (the most important three of the eight official languages of Nigeria other than English) lack further support, including native keyboard layouts and locales. Mongolian is currently supported only in Cyrillic, not in its traditional alphabet.

Europe and America

(en) English

Primary source language for the Internet, and for high-tech in general. Easier to describe materials for which this is not true in this section.

Users and translators: See Category:User en

(fr) French

Users and translators: See Category:User fr

(de) German

Users and translators: See Category:User de

(pt) Portuguese

Main dialects: Brazilian and continental

Users and translators: See Category:User pt

(es) Spanish

Users and translators: See Category:User es

(ru) Russian

Users and translators: See Category:User ru

East and Central Asia

(ru) Russian

Users and translators: See Category:User ru

(zh) Chinese

Main written dialects: simplified and traditional

Users and translators: See Category:User zh

(ja) Japanese

Users and translators: See Category:User ja

(mn) Mongolian

Users and translators: See Category:User mn

(bo) Tibetan

Users and translators: See Category:User bo

South Asia

(bn) Bengali

Users and translators: See Category:User bn

(gu) Gujarati

Users and translators: See Category:User gu

(hi) Hindi

Users and translators: See Category:User hi

(kn) Kannada

Users and translators: See Category:User kn

(ml) Malayalam

Users and translators: See Category:User ml

(mr) Marathi

Users and translators: See Category:User mr

(np) Nepali

Users and translators: See Category:User np

(or) Oriya

Users and translators: See Category:User or

(pa) Punjabi

Users and translators: See Category:User pa

(ta) Tamil

Users and translators: See Category:User ta

(te) Telugu

Users and translators: See Category:User te

(th) Thai

Users and translators: See Category:User th

Sub-Saharan Africa

(ha) Hausa

Users and translators: See Category:User ha

(ig) Igbo

Users and translators: See Category:User ig

(yo) Yoruba

Users and translators: See Category:User yo

(rw) Kinyarwanda

Users and translators: See Category:User rw

Middle East and North Africa

(ar) Arabic

Users and translators: See Category:User ar

Linux Localizations

See also Locales, Keyboard Layouts

Linux localization is complex. Several major components, including Mozilla, KDE, and OpenOffice, provide their own localizations. When a distribution of Linux is released in a particular language, it may be a limited subset of applications and of documentation that is supported. A number of languages are routinely supported in most distributions, while for other languages there may be only one or very few distributions including it.

You can use the search page at Distrowatch to look for distributions for particular languages, and for other functions, such as Linux for the blind.

One of the best resources for language support is the L10n section of the Mandriva Linux Web site. Mandriva Linux Localization Teams includes groups working on the following languages. However, there are many Linux localization projects independent of any of the major distributions.

• (af) Afrikaans
• (am) Amharic
• (ar) Arabic
• (az) Azerbaijani
• (be) Belarussian
• (bg) Bulgarian
• (bn) Bengali
• (br) Breton
• (bs) Bosnian
• (ca) Catalan
• (cs) Czech
• (cy) Cymraeg (Welsh)
• (da) Danish
• (de) German
• (el) Greek
• (eo) Esperanto
• (es) Spanish
• (et) Estonian
• (eu) Euskara (Basque)
• (fa) Farsi (Iranian)
• (fi) Suomi (Finnish)
• (fr) French
• (fur) Furlan
• (ga) Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic)
• (gl) Galician
• (he) Hebrew
• (hi) Hindi
• (hr) Croatian
• (hu) Hungarian
• (hy) Armenian
• (id) Indonesian
• (is) Icelandic
• (it) Italian
• (ja) Japanese
• (ka) Georgian
• (kn) Kannada
• (ko) Korean
• (ku) Kurdish
• (ky) Kyrgyz
• (lo) Lao
• (lt) Lithuanian
• (ltg) Latgalian
• (lv) Latvian
• (mk) Macedonian
• (mn) Mongolian
• (ms) Malay
• (mt) Maltese
• (nl) Dutch
• (nb) Norwegian Bokmål
• (nn) Norwegian Nynorsk
• (pa_IN) Punjabi (in gurmukhi script)
• (pl) Polish
• (pt) Portuguese (Portugal)
• (pt_BR) Brazilian Portuguese
• (ro) Romanian
• (ru) Russian
• (sc) Sardinian
• (sk) Slovakian
• (sl) Slovenian
• (sq) Albanian (Shqip)
• (sr) Serbian
• (sv) Swedish
• (ta) Tamil
• (tg) Tajiki
• (th) Thai
• (tk) Turkmen
• (tl) Filipino (Tagalog)
• (tr) Turkish
• (uk) Ukrainian
• (ur) Urdu
• (uz) Uzbekian
• (vi) Vietnamese
• (wa) Walloon
• (zh_CN) Chinese (simplified)
• (zh_TW) Chinese (traditional)

Another good source is [IndLinux]

• Bengali
• Devanagari
• Gujarati
• Punjabi
• Kannnada
• Malayalam
• Oriya
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Dzongkha (Bhutan)
• Assamese
• Nepalese
• Sinhala (Sri Lanka)

Other Linux localization projects are listed on pages in this Wiki for the languages concerned. It would be useful to link to them from this page.

Here are some others.

• Pashtu Localization Project Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan
• Soyombo Mongolian Linux Cyrillic now, traditional Mongolian alphabet to come
• Rwandan distribution of Linux
• Wazobia Linux in English, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba
• Thai Linux (in Thai)

External Links

• Data on all known human languages
• ISO two-letter language codes