Language is a controlled vocabulary that identifies world languages, language varieties and language groups, including sign languages. Its primary purpose is to support the publication, exchange and reuse of multilingual content across EU institutions and with external partners. The full set includes more than 8000 language varieties, each identified by a three-letter code compliant with the unified ISO 639 standard. This consolidated international standard provides a single and coherent framework for the representation of language identifiers, based on alpha 2 and alpha 3 codes where relevant.
The Language authority table aligns with the unified ISO 639 system and relies on three-letter identifiers to ensure comprehensive coverage, stability and long-term interoperability across systems, data spaces and multilingual applications. Where no ISO 639 identifier exists for a language or language variety required for EU operations, a non-ISO alphanumeric code may be assigned in order to avoid confusion with the strictly alphabetic ISO identifiers, while ensuring that all required linguistic distinctions can be represented.
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, disseminated on the EU Vocabularies website, and constitutes a corporate reference data asset covered by the Corporate Reference Data Management policy of the European Commission.
