ISO 639-2

ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as "Alpha-3" codes. There are 464 language codes in the list.

The U.S. Library of Congress is the registration authority for ISO 639-2 (referred to as ISO 639-2/RA). As registration authority, the LOC receives and reviews proposed changes; they also have representation on the ISO 639-RA Joint Advisory Committee responsible for maintaining the ISO 639 code tables.

Work was begun on the ISO 639-2 standard in 1989, due to the fact that the ISO 639-1 standard, which gives two-letter codes for languages, would not be able to accommodate a sufficient number of languages. The ISO 639-2 standard was first released in 1998.

While most languages are given one code by the standard, twenty-two of the languages described have two three-letter codes, a "bibliographic" code (ISO 639-2/B), which is derived from the English name for the language and was a necessary legacy feature, and a "terminological" code (ISO 639-2/T), which is derived from the native name for the language. Each of these twenty-two languages are also included in the ISO 639-1 standard.

In addition, there are codes for special situations:
 * mis is listed as "uncoded languages"
 * mul (for multiple languages) is applied when several languages are used and it is not practical to specify all the appropriate language codes
 * The interval from qaa to qtz is reserved and is not used in the standard
 * und (for undetermined) is used in situations in which a language or languages must be indicated but the language cannot be identified.
 * zxx is listed in the code list as "no linguistic content" (added 2006-01-11)

Collective languages
Some ISO 639-2 codes that are commonly used for languages do not precisely represent a particular language or some related languages (as the above macrolanguages). They are regarded as collective languages (or collectives) and are excluded from ISO 639-3.

For a definition of macrolanguages and collective languages see.

Collective languages and their ISO 639-2 codes are:

not obviously a collective in 639-2

 * bad Banda
 * bih Bihari (has an ISO 639-1 code)
 * bik Bikol
 * btk Batak
 * day Dayak
 * him Himachali
 * ijo Ijo
 * kar Karen
 * kro</tt> Kru
 * nah</tt> Nahuatl
 * son</tt> Songhai
 * znd</tt> Zande\

Bihari (bih) is marked as collective but on the other hand has an ISO 639-1 code (bh) which should only be for individual languages. The reason is that individual Bihari languages received an ISO 639-2 code, which makes Bihari a language family for the purposes of ISO 639-2, but a single language for the purposes of ISO 639-1.

obviously intending to cover several languages

 * art</tt> Artificial languages (Other)
 * afa</tt> Afro-Asiatic (Other)
 * tut</tt> Altaic (Other)
 * map</tt> Austronesian (Other)
 * bat</tt> Baltic (Other)
 * bnt</tt> Bantu (Other)
 * ber</tt> Berber (Other)
 * cau</tt> Caucasian (Other)
 * cai</tt> Central American Indian (Other)
 * crp</tt> Creoles and Pidgins (Other)
 * cpe</tt> Creoles and Pidgins, English-based (Other)
 * cpf</tt> Creoles and Pidgins, French-based (Other)
 * <tt>cpp</tt> Creoles and Pidgins, Portuguese-based (Other)
 * <tt>cus</tt> Cushitic (Other)
 * <tt>dra</tt> Dravidian (Other)
 * <tt>fiu</tt> Finno-Ugrian (Other)
 * <tt>gem</tt> Germanic (Other)
 * <tt>inc</tt> Indic (Other)
 * <tt>ine</tt> Indo-European (Other)
 * <tt>ira</tt> Iranian (Other)
 * <tt>khi</tt> Khoisan (Other)
 * <tt>mkh</tt> Mon-Khmer (Other)
 * <tt>nic</tt> Niger-Kordofanian (Other)
 * <tt>ssa</tt> Nilo-Saharan (Other)
 * <tt>nai</tt> North American Indian (Other)
 * <tt>paa</tt> Papuan (Other)
 * <tt>phi</tt> Philippine (Other)
 * <tt>roa</tt> Romance (Other)
 * <tt>sgn</tt> sign languages
 * <tt>smi</tt> Sami languages (Other)
 * <tt>sem</tt> Semitic (Other)
 * <tt>sit</tt> Sino-Tibetan (Other)
 * <tt>sla</tt> Slavic (Other)
 * <tt>sai</tt> South American Indian (Other)
 * <tt>tai</tt> Tai (Other)

B and T codes
If possible ISO 15924 derives their codes from ISO 639-2 and where there are two codes ISO 639-2/B is favored.

ISO 639-3 uses ISO 639-2/T.