Wiktionary has its own set of language codes based on those of the ISO, and its own set of language names that go with them. Problems arise when these codes don't match the ISO ones. This is mostly due to differences in scope: Wiktionary disagrees with the ISO as to which lects are independent languages and which are varieties of other lects. There are also differences as to which name or variation of a name should be used as the main name.
On top of that, there are languages associated with a specific country where the international code for the country is different from the language code of the language spoken there.
Add to that the large number of languages and language codes as well as the superficial similarity between different language names and between different language codes, and you have confused editors who make a mess of things.
Another common source of errors is editors who are ignorant of what the codes are there for and others who are careless or absent-minded about which codes they use in which language. They copy templates from other entries and reuse them without updating the language codes.
| Code used | Correct header for code used |
Header used | Correct code for header used |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| br | Breton | Belarusian | be | Typo |
| bs | none- module error | Bosnian (Serbo-Croatian) |
sh | |
| ch | Chamorro | Chinese | zh | |
| cnr | none- module error | Montenegrin (Serbo-Croatian) |
sh | |
| cu | Old Church Slavonic | Welsh | cy | Typo |
| hr | none- module error | Croatian Serbo-Croatian |
sh | |
| jp | none- module error | Japanese | ja | |
| kr | Kanuri | Korean | ko | |
| li | Limburgish | Lithuanian | lt | |
| ne | Nepali | Dutch | nl | |
| nn | Norwegian Nynorsk | Old Norse | non | Typo |
| pa | Punjabi | Pashto | ps | |
| sc | Sardinian | Serbo-Croatian | sh | |
| sc | Sardinian | Sicilian | scn | |
| sr | none- module error | Serbian (Serbo-Croatian} |
sh | |
| sw | Swahili | Swedish | sv | |
| se | Northern Sami | Swedish | sv | |
| syc | Syriac | Assyrian Neo-Aramaic | aii | |
| as | Assamese | Bengali | bn | |
| bn | Bengali | Assamese | as | |
| id | Indonesian | Malay | ms | |
| ms | Malay | Indonesian | id | |
| el | Greek | Ancient Greek | grc | |
| ur | Urdu | Punjabi | pa |
These are sets of languages where the same editors work on many of them, and don't pay much attention to which codes they're using for which languages
(not all of them, by any means)
hi (Hindi) or gu (Gujarati) codes tend to be used for a wide variety of these languages
| code | Template | Language |
|---|---|---|
| af | {{affix}} |
]
|
| alt | {{alter}} |
]
|
| ant | {{antonyms}} |
]
|
| as | {{antsense}} |
]
|
| bor | {{borrowed}} |
]
|
| cal | {{calque}} |
]
|
| co | {{collocation}} |
]
|
| cog | {{cognate}} |
]
|
| com | {{compound}} |
]
|
| con | {{confix}} |
]
|
| cot | {{coordinate terms}} |
]
|
| dbt | {{doublet}} |
]
|
| der | {{derived}} |
]
|
| dim | {{diminutive}} |
]
|
| gl | {{gloss}} |
]
|
| hmp | {{homophone}} |
]
|
| inh | {{inherited}} |
]
|
| lb | {{label}} |
]
|
| lbl | {{label}} |
]
|
| lg | {{glossary}} |
]
|
| ngd | {{non-gloss definition}} |
]
|
| nl | {{nonlemma}} |
]
|
| nom | {{nominalization }} |
]
|
| or | {{original research}} |
]
|
| par | {{parasynonyms}} |
]
|
| pl | {{pseudo-loan}} |
]
|
| pre | {{prefix}} |
]
|
| psm | {{phono-semantic matching}} |
]
|
| see | {{see}} |
]
|
| sid | {{senseid}} |
]
|
| sl | {{semantic loan}} |
]
|
| smc | {{smallcaps}} |
]
|
| ss | {{semantic shift}} |
]
|
| swp | {{slim-wikipedia}} |
]
|
| syn | {{synonyms}} |
]
|
| tcl | {{transclude}} |
]
|
| tl | {{template}} |
]
|
| tlb | {{term label}} |
]
|
| top | {{topics}} |
]
|
| tr | {{tea room}} |
]
|
| ubl | {{unbulleted list}} |
]
|
| unk | {{unknown}} |
]
|
Mostly due to incorrect language codes in headword templates, but also misspelled, misformatted or missing language headers. There are a few cases where someone uses a language name not accepted by Wiktionary and puts the language code of a related language in the templates to avoid module errors.
Mostly due to incorrect language codes in templates, but also often due to using a transliteration of the type found in etymological references instead of the term in the correct script.
There are also problems with the modules' ability to deal with entries for diacritics that aren't on letters, and with certain letters in common scripts that are only used in a small number of the languages written in those scripts. These will need to be fixed by updating the modules.
The genuine cases of terms that are attested in scripts otherwise not used for their language should be ignored.
68: Missing headword templates
Wiktionary:Todo/Lists/Template language code does not match header (sorted by language)