Language is a controlled vocabulary that lists world languages and language varieties, including sign languages. Its main purpose is to support activities associated with the publication process. The full set of languages contains more than 8000 language varieties, each identified by a code equivalent to the ISO 639-3 code. Concepts are aligned with the ISO 639 international standard, which is issued in several parts:
ISO 639-1 contains strictly two alphabetic letters (alpha-2),
ISO 639-2/B (B = bibliographic) is used for bibliographic purpose (alpha-3),
ISO 639-2/T (T = terminology) is used for technical purpose (alpha-3),
ISO 639-3 covers all the languages and macro-languages of the world (alpha-3); the values are compliant with ISO 639-2/T.
If an authority code is needed for a language without an assigned ISO code, an alphanumeric code is created to avoid confusion with the strictly alphabetic ISO codes. Labels are provided in all 24 official EU languages for the most frequently used languages.
Language is under governance of the Interinstitutional Metadata and Formats Committee (IMFC). It is maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union and disseminated on the EU Vocabularies website. It is a corporate reference data asset covered by the Corporate Reference Data Management policy of the European Commission.