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Checklist: Left-to-Right (LTR) Languages
Left-to-Right (LTR) Languages are written and read from left to right, and localization for billions of these native speakers is usual default for software localization.
Localization for LTR languages is often taken as a given, as English has for far too long been considered the default language for digital content. However, it is crucial to plan for RTL (right-to-left) localization in the early stages of product design and kept in mind that it involves more than just text translation. Spatial design changes are necessary when localizing for RTL languages (including navigation, visuals, general layout, numerics, etc).
Enabling Unicode Bidi (or bidirectional script support) should be on your to-do list at the very beginning of the product development process.
Bidi Unicode support
Bidirectional script support means that both writing scripts with different directions (left-to-right and right-to-left) are supported. Unicode’s bidirectional (or Bidi) support includes not just letters, but also numbers, formatting characters, special characters, paragraph and heading levels.
Script or writing systems of languages can have a different direction of writing, reading and interpreting. While languages such as English, German and Spanish have the left-to-right direction, others are written and read from right to left or in different variants of vertical writing.
Although there are just 12 languages with RTL writing scripts, LTR languages boast with larger numbers.
Which are Right-to-Left Languages?
The left-to-right languages are available in the list below.
ISO 639-2 Code Language | ISO 639-2 Code Language | ||
---|---|---|---|
aa | Afar | lij | Ligurian |
ab | Abkhazian | lmo | Lombard |
af | Afrikaans | ln | Lingala |
ak | Akan | lo | Laotian |
als | Alemannic | lzz | Laz |
am | Amharic | lt | Lithuanian |
an | Aragonese | lv | Latvian |
ang | Angal | map-bms | Banyumasan |
ang | Anglo-Saxon / Old English | mg | Malagasy |
as | Assamese | man | Mandarin |
ast | Asturian | mh | Marshallese |
av | Avar | mi | Maori |
awa | Awadhi | min | Minangkabau |
ay | Aymara | mk | Macedonian |
az | Azerbaijani | ml | Malayalam |
ba | Bashkir | mn | Mongolian |
bar | Bavarian | mo | Moldovan |
bat-smg | Samogitian | mr | Marathi |
bcl | Bikol | ms | Malay |
be | Belarusian | mt | Maltese |
be-x-old | Belarusian (Taraškievica) | mus | Creek / Muskogee |
bg | Bulgarian | mwl | Mirandese |
bh | Bihari | my | Burmese |
bi | Bislama | na | Nauruan |
bm | Bambara | nah | Nahuatl |
bn | Bengali | nap | Neapolitan |
bo | Tibetan | nd | North Ndebele |
bpy | Bishnupriya Manipuri | nds | Low German / Low Saxon |
br | Breton | nds-nl | Dutch Low Saxon |
bs | Bosnian | ne | Nepali |
bug | Buginese | new | Newar |
bxr | Buriat (Russia) | ng | Ndonga |
ca | Catalan | nl | Dutch |
cdo | Min Dong Chinese | nn | Norwegian Nynorsk |
ce | Chechen | no | Norwegian |
ceb | Cebuano | nr | South Ndebele |
ch | Chamorro | nso | Northern Sotho |
cho | Choctaw | nrm | Norman |
chr | Cherokee | nv | Navajo |
chy | Cheyenne | ny | Chichewa |
co | Corsican | oc | Occitan |
cr | Cree | oj | Ojibwa |
cs | Czech | om | Oromo |
csb | Kashubian | or | Oriya |
cu | Old Church Slavonic / Old Bulgarian | os | Ossetian / Ossetic |
cv | Chuvash | pa | Panjabi / Punjabi |
cy | Welsh | pag | Pangasinan |
da | Danish | pam | Kapampangan |
de | German | pap | Papiamentu |
diq | Dimli | pdc | Pennsylvania German |
dsb | Lower Sorbian | pi | Pali |
dz | Dzongkha | pih | Norfolk |
ee | Ewe | pl | Polish |
el | Greek | pms | Piedmontese |
en | English | pt | Portuguese |
eo | Esperanto | qu | Quechua |
es | Spanish | rm | Raeto Romance |
et | Estonian | rmy | Romani |
eu | Basque | rn | Kirundi |
ext | Extremaduran | ro | Romanian |
ff | Peul | roa-rup | Aromanian |
fi | Finnish | ru | Russian |
fiu-vro | Võro | rw | Rwandi |
fj | Fijian | sa | Sanskrit |
fo | Faroese | sc | Sardinian |
fr | French | scn | Sicilian |
frp | Arpitan / Franco-Provençal | sco | Scots |
fur | Friulian | sd | Sindhi |
fy | West Frisian | se | Northern Sami |
ga | Irish | sg | Sango |
gan | Gan Chinese | sh | Serbo-Croatian |
gbm | Garhwali | si | Sinhalese |
gd | Scottish Gaelic | simple | Simple English |
gil | Gilbertese | sk | Slovak |
gl | Galician | sl | Slovenian |
gn | Guarani | sm | Samoan |
got | Gothic | sn | Shona |
gu | Gujarati | so | Somalia |
gv | Manx | sq | Albanian |
hak | Hakka Chinese | sr | Serbian |
haw | Hawaiian | ss | Swati |
hi | Hindi | st | Southern Sotho |
ho | Hiri Motu | su | Sundanese |
hr | Croatian | sv | Swedish |
ht | Haitian | sw | Swahili |
hu | Hungarian | ta | Tamil |
hy | Armenian | te | Telugu |
hz | Herero | tet | Tetum |
ia | Interlingua | tg | Tajik |
id | Indonesian | th | Thai |
ie | Interlingue | ti | Tigrinya |
ig | Igbo | tk | Turkmen |
ii | Sichuan Yi | tl | Tagalog |
ik | Inupiak | tlh | Klingon |
ilo | Ilokano | tn | Tswana |
inh | Ingush | to | Tonga |
io | Ido | tpi | Tok Pisin |
is | Icelandic | tr | Turkish |
it | Italian | ts | Tsonga |
iu | Inuktitut | tt | Tatar |
ja | Japanese | tum | Tumbuka |
jbo | Lojban | tw | Twi |
jv | Javanese | ty | Tahitian |
ka | Georgian | udm | Udmurt |
kg | Kongo | ug | Uyghur |
ki | Kikuyu | uk | Ukrainian |
kj | Kuanyama | uz | Uzbek |
kk | Kazakh | ve | Venda |
kl | Greenlandic | vi | Vietnamese |
km | Cambodian | vec | Venetian |
kn | Kannada | vls | West Flemish |
ko | Korean | vo | Volapük |
kr | Kanuri | wa | Walloon |
ksh | Ripuarian | war | Waray / Samar-Leyte Visayan |
kv | Komi | wo | Wolof |
kw | Cornish | xal | Kalmyk |
ky | Kirghiz | xh | Xhosa |
la | Latin | xmf | Megrelian |
lad | Ladino / Judeo-Spanish | yo | Yoruba |
lan | Lango | za | Zhuang |
lb | Luxembourgish | zh | Chinese |
lg | Ganda | zh-classical | Classical Chinese |
li | Limburgian | zh-min-nan | Minnan |
zh-yue | Cantonese | ||
zu | Zulu |
Related Best Practices
Further resources
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