Verbix Language Codes

Verbix uses 3-5 letter codes as language identifiers. Verbix supports many languages that don't have an ISO code; therefore language codes as based on Ethnologue codes. In addition to the 6000+ languages in Ethnologue, Verbix also supports languages that are considered dialects in Ethnologue and there are also a number of extinct languages for which there are no existing codes.

3-letter codes

When available, Verbix uses the same language codes as 15th edition of Ethnologue.

4-5 letter codes

With some exceptions, there are no codes in Ethnologue for extinct languages, artificial languages ("conlangs"), and for languages that are considered to be a dialect.

For these Verbix uses 4-5 letter codes in the following way:

Extinct languages

Extinct languages are those natural languages that are no more spoken. For instance Old English is an extinct language.

The language code for extinct languages follows this format:
xabci

• The code always begins with x.
• After this letter follows a 3-letter code, which may be the SIL-code for the successor of the extinct language. Or if there's no successor, the 3-letter code can be a code used at Linguist List.
• Last letter is an optional identifier; for instance for Old English the identifier is o.

Example:

The code for Old English is xengo in Verbix. x tells it's an extinct language, eng is the SIL-code for modern English, o is used for Old English (opposed to m for Middle English).

Note:

Earlier versions of Verbix used the same 3-letter codes as Linguist List. However there were overlaps with SIL-codes, which forced Verbix to abandon these Linguist List codes.

Conlangs

Conlangs are artificial languages that a person (or group of persons) has invented. Oldest (known) conlangs are created in 19th century.

The language code for extinct languages follows this format:
cabc

• The code always begins with c.
• After this letter follows a 3-letter code, which may be 3-letter code used at Linguist List. There are however many languages for which Verbix has been forced to use its own code.

Example:

The code for Occidental is cocc in Verbix. c tells, it's a conlang. occ is the code used in Linguist List.

Dialects

There is a constant arguing about whether some spoken tongue is a language or a dialect. (This is sometimes a policital thing. Verbix quotes the opinion of the person that has submitted the language/dialect to Verbix community).

Because Verbix is based on the 3-letter codes of Ethnologue, it must use its own code for languages that are considered a dialect in Ethnologue.

The language code for dialects (languages) follows this format:
dabci

• The code always begins with d.
• After this letter follows a 3-letter code, which may be the SIL-code for the language whose dialect is considered a language.
• Last letter is an optional identifier; regularly the first character of the dialect name.

Example:

The code for Swedish in Våmhus is dswev in Verbix. d tells it's a dialect, swe is the SIL-code for Standard Swedish, v is the first letter of Våmhus..