shaka-player/docs/design/current/talking-about-languages.md

Shaka Player - Talking About Language

Summary

This document outlines the standard set of terms and definitions used by Shaka Player when working with language.

Locales

A locale is the top level "object" and is composed of three components:

• language, a lowercase 2-character code. Preferably from ISO 639.
• region, an uppercase 2-character code. Preferably from ISO 3166.
• dialect, a lowercase n-character code.

A locale is not required to use every component but must follow one of three patterns:

• language (e.g. "en")
• language-REGION (e.g. "en-US")
• language-REGION-dialect (e.g. "en-US-wa")

Relationships

Locales follow a tree-like structure, so we use tree-like terms to talk about the relationships between locales:

• "en" is the parent of "en-US".
• "en-US" is the parent of "en-US-tx".
• "en" is the grandparent of "en-US-tx".
• "en-US" and "en-CA" are siblings.
• "en-US-tx" and "en-US-wa" are siblings.

Compatibility

There are three types of compatibility:

• Locale Compatible - When two locales share the same language, region, and dialect.
• "en" and "en"
• "en-US" and "en-US"
• "en-US-wa" and "en-US-wa"
• Region Compatible - When two locales share the same language and region.
• "en-US" and "en-US"
• "en-US" and "en-US-wa"
• "en-US-wa" and "en-US-tx"
• Language Compatible - When two locales share the same language.
• "en-US" and "en-US"
• "en-US" and "en-CA"
• "en-US-wa" and "en-US-tx"
• "en-US-wa" and "en-CA-mb"
• "en" and "en-US-wa"
• "en-US" and "en-US-wa"