Languages

english | 日本語

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

Core languages for OLPC

These are languages in order of support for our firmware notices and messages, interface strings, web pages, and the like:

Tier 1: Spanish (es), English (en), Portuguese (pt)

Tier 2: Arabic (ar), Amharic (am), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Hindi (hi), Russian (ru), Thai (th)

Tier 3: Hausa (ha), Igbo (ig), Yoruba (yo), Kazakh (kk), Mongolian (mn), Nepali (ne), Marathi (mr), Romanian (ro), Turkish (tr), Urdu (ur)

Tier 4: German (de), Italian (it), Korean (ko), Uzbek (uz), Chinese (zh), other languages with keyboards, other official languages of green countries

other: Greek (el), Croatian (hr), Indonesian (id), Dutch (nl), Newari (new), other offiial languages of red countries

Partner country official languages

Data on official languages from both Wikipedia and 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.

List from map of launch countries, as of 16:53, 12 October 2007 (EDT): Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Libya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Thailand, Uruguay & USA.

Country	Official	Other Language(s)	Region(s)
Argentina	Spanish	living languages: 25
		Guarani	Corrientes, Misiones
Brazil	Portuguese	living languages: 188
China, People's Republic of	Mandarin (aka Putonghua)	living languages: 235
		Cantonese	Hong Kong, Macau (de facto)
		English	Hong Kong
		Kazakh	Ili Kazakh
		Korean	Changbai, Yanbian
		Mongolian	Inner Mongolia
		Portuguese	Macau
		Tajik	Taxkorgan
		Tibetan	Tibet
		Uyghur	Xinjiang
		Zhuang	Guangxi
		Daur	- regional -
		Kalmyk-Oirat	- regional -
		Lu	- regional -
		Peripheral Mongolian	- regional -
		Central Tibetan	- regional -
		Uyghur	- regional -
		Xibe	- regional -
		Northern Zhuang	- regional -
Egypt	(Egyptian) Arabic	living languages: 11
India	Hindi English	living languages: 415
	sheduled official	Assamese	Assam
	sheduled official	Bengali	Tripura, West Bengal
	sheduled official	Bodo	Assam
	sheduled official	Dogri	Jammu, Kashmir
	sheduled official	Gujarati	Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Daman, Diu, Gujarat
	sheduled official	Kannada	Karnataka
	sheduled official	Kashmiri	Jammu, Kashmir
	sheduled official	Konkani	Goa
	sheduled official	Maithili	Bihar
	sheduled official	Malayalam	Kerala, Pondicherry, Lakshadweep
		Meitei	Manipur
	sheduled official	Marathi	Maharashtra
	sheduled official	Nepali	Sikkim
	sheduled official	Oriya	Orissa
	sheduled official	Punjabi	Punjab
		Sanskrit	classical learning language
	sheduled official	Santali	Jharkhand
	sheduled official	Sindhi	Jammu, Kashmir
	sheduled official	Tamil	Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry
	sheduled official	Telugu	Andhra Pradesh, Pondicherry
	sheduled official	Urdu	Jammu, Kashmir
		French	Pondicherry Union Territory - only
Libya	Arabic (std)	living languages: 9
Nigeria	Hausa Igbo Yoruba English	living languages: 510
	widely used	Adamawa, Edo, Efik, Fulfulde, Idoma, (central) Kanuri
Rwanda	Kinyarwanda French English	living languages: 3 Source: Ethnologue
Thailand	Thai	living languages: 74
Uruguay	Spanish

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

(uk) Ukrainian

Users and translators: See Category:User uk

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

(ko) Korean

Users and translators: See Category:User ko

(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

(ps) Pashto

Users and translators: See Category:User ps

(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

i18n & l10n

The following table is focused on the list of languages present in the currently 'green status' countries (Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Libya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Thailand, United States, Uruguay). Countries with other 'status' may benefit from efforts for the 'green languages', plus add their own set of languages. Each language must be fully supported for the Localization effort.

Language	Green Countries	Red Countries	Orange
Arabic	Libya		Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq (+), Israel (+), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon (+), Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan (+), Syria (+), Tunisia, Yemen
English	Nigeria, Rwanda, USA (+)	Belize (+), Pakistan (+), Philippines (+)	Canada (+), Gambia, Guyana, India (+), Kenya (+), Mauritius (+), Namibia (+), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone, Singapore (+), South Africa (+), St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda (+), Zimbabwe (+)
French	Rwanda	Haiti (+)	Benin, Cameroon (+), Democratic Republic of the Congo (+), Gabon, Mali, Niger, Senegal, St. Martin (+), Togo
Hausa	Nigeria
Igbo	Nigeria
Kinyarwanda	Rwanda
Portuguese	Brazil	Angola	Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe
Spanish	Argentina, Peru (+), Uruguay, USA (+)	Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala (+), Honduras, México (+), Nicaragua, Panamá, Colombia	Bolivia (+), Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Paraguay (+), Puerto Rico (+), Spain (+), Venezuela (+)
Thai	Thailand
Yoruba	Nigeria
Other non-green languages		Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines (+), Pakistan (+), Vietnam	Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan (+), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, China (+), Croatia, Cyprus, Eritrea, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India (+), Iran, Italy, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Mongolia, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vatican City

The following table presents on a per country base the target languages that must be considered for the Localization effort of the countries with 'green status' (Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Libya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Thailand, United States, Uruguay).

Country	Target Languages	Mayor/important languages	Minor/relevant languages
Argentina EthnologueAR	[spa] Spanish	[quh] Quechua (0.85M - 2.1%)	See OLPC Argentina/Languages
Brazil EthnologueBR	[por] Portuguese	none reported by Ethnologue BR above 50,000 speakers.
Ethiopia EthnologueET	[amh] Amharic, [eng] English, [tir] Tigrigna language	see ethnologue	see ethnologue
India EthnologueIN	see ethnologue	see ethnologue	see ethnologue
Libya EthnologueLY	[arb] Arabic, Standard	[ayl] Arabic, Libyan Spoken (4.2M - 75%), [jbn] Nafusi (0.14M - 2.5%)	[rmt] Domari (0.03M - 0.6%)
Nepal EthnologueNP	see ethnologue	see ethnologue	see ethnologue
Nigeria EthnologueNG	[eng] English, [hau] Hausa —(18.5M - 13.5%), [yor] Yoruba —(18.9M - 13.8%)	[bin] Edo (1.0M - 0.7%) official, [efi] Efik (0.4M - 0.3%) official, [fub] Fulfulde, Adamawa (7.6M - 5.6%) official, [fuv] Fulfulde, Nigerian (1.7M - 1.2%), [ibb] Ibibio (1.5M to 2.0M - 1.0-1.5%), [idu] Idoma (0.6M - 0.4%) official, [ibo] Igbo (18.0M - 13.1%) official, [knc] Kanuri, Central (3.0M - 2.2%) official, [tiv] Tiv (2.2M - 1.6%)	See OLPC Nigeria/Languages
Pakistan EthnologuePK	see ethnologue	see ethnologue	see ethnologue
Peru EthnologueNG	[spa] Spanish	pending	See OLPC Peru/Languages
Romania EthnologueRO	see ethnologue	see ethnologue	see ethnologue
Russia EthnologueRU	see ethnologue	see ethnologue	see ethnologue
Rwanda EthnologueRW	[kin] Kinyarwanda, [fra] French, [eng] English	[swh] Swahili (0.01M - 1.3%)
Thailand EthnologueTH	Thai (dialects?)	[nan] Chinese, Min Nan (1.1M - 1.7%), [kxm] Khmer, Northern (1.1M - 1.8%), [mfa] Malay, Pattani (3.1M - 4.8%), [tha] Thai (20.2M - 32%), [tts] Thai, Northeastern (15.0M - 23%), [nod] Thai, Northern (6.0M - 9.2%), [sou] Thai, Southern (5.0M - 7.7%)	[ksw] Karen, S'gaw (0.3M - 0.5%), [kdt] Kuy (0.3M - 0.5%)
Uruguay EthnologueUY	[spa] Spanish	none other reported by Ethnologue UY
USA EthnologueUS	[eng] English	[spa] Spanish (22.4M - 7.5%), [___] Polish (3.4M - 1.1%), [deu] German, Standard (6.1M - 2.0%), [___] Arabic (3.0M - 1.0%)	[___] Armenian (1.1M - 0.4%), [___] Chinese (1.6M - 0.5%), [___] Czech (1.5M - 0.5%), [___] Eastern Yiddish (1.3M - 0.4%), [___] French (1.1M - 0.4%), [frc] French, Cajun (1.0M - 0.3%), [hwc] Hawai'i Creole English (0.6M - 0.2%), [___] Italian (0.9M - 0.3%), [___] Japanese (0.8M - 0.3%), [___] Korean (1.8M - 0.6%), [___] Philippines (1.4M - 0.5%), [___] Portuguese (1.3M - 0.4%), [___] Swedish (0.6M - 0.2%), [___] Ukrainian (0.8M - 0.3%), [___] Vietnamese (0.9M - 0.3%), [___] Vlax Romani (0.7M - 0.2%), [___] Western Farsi (0.9M - 0.3%)

External Links

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

See Also

• Linux language support
• ISO 639