Podcast Language is defined in the channelpart of an RSS as <language>en-US</language>, this particular definition declares English and US, United States of America variant. This is default as RSS and Podcasting in large were invented in the USA.
But Podcasting is larger that just one language and a default definition.
ISO-639 and it's sub-variants declare about 7000 spoken languages, minus the signed languages as they does make any sense in a spoken context as audio podcasts are.
These definitions has been collected and arranged to enable language tagging in a podcasting context to allow for a much more fine-grained mapping of languages, most podcasting hosting companies are running an outdated and sometimes flat out wrong list of defined languages.
My intentions are to give podcast hosting companies/actors a way of easily find information, even pre-built definitions to either use directly or to derive from, but essentially give them a way of adding over 7000 spoken languages, for their users to choose from. By letting podcasters/producers choose from a larger set of possible languages, most of them would choose the actual spoken language of their podcast, not defaulting to en-usor `en .. or worse, an EMPTY language declaration.
To be able to build this, a number of sources of information was used;
ISO, International Organization for Standardization
The ISO-639 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639
ISO-639-1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes
ISO-639-2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-2_codes
ISO-639-3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-3_codes
Coordinated and other information: https://glottolog.org/glottolog/language
For ease of use, the following resources are pre-built for easy implementation, both for developers of podcast hosting platforms and podcast catcher mobile applications, where language-tagging of podcasts makes sense.
| Format | Inteded use |
|---|---|
| YAML Source | This is the information ORIGIN, this is what everything is built from. |
| JSON | JSON with all definitions, quite large but should provide coverage of all defefined languages. (Not implemented yet) |
| XML | XML with all definitions, quite large but should provide coverage of all defined languages. (Not Implemented yet) |
| HTML5 Select Element | HTML5 Select element with option elements. (Not implemented yet) |
This project is currently run by a single individual, doing corrections, additions on spare time. You are welcome to send PR to help out.
This is a part of the PodcastIndex.org initiative and an effort to bring podcasting forward.
I am Christopher, "The Swedish Trickler"