List of all available languages for Windows .NET framework

c# .net localization locale globalization

16,408

Solution 1

The complete list of all languages can be returned from CultureInfo:

using System.Globalization;
CultureInfo[] cultures = CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures);

foreach (CultureInfo culture in cultures)
{
    Debug.WriteLine(culture.EnglishName);
}

As in this post: Programmatic way to get all the available languages (in satellite assemblies)

And as covered on msdn.

And after extensive searching and testing, I found that the language collection that is used by the SDL Trados Studio is the CultureInfo.

It is accessed through the API as:

string strTgtLocaleId = EditorController.ActiveDocument.ActiveFile.Language.ToString();
string strTgtLanguage = EditorController.ActiveDocument.ActiveFile.Language.DisplayName.ToString();
int intTgtLanguageId = EditorController.ActiveDocument.ActiveFile.Language.CultureInfo.LCID;

Thus the full list actually that I need for my plugin (acknowledging @Jenszcz's observation on the legacy strings from earlier products) is in fact can be enumerated from the CultureInfo.

My goal was however to directly translate these codes to the Word version of the IDs. So I ran a code to compare the two lists. I used the Word.Language enumeration that I posted in the OP:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Object oMissing = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
            Object oEndOfDoc = "\\endofdoc"; /* \endofdoc is a predefined bookmark */

            //OBJECTS OF FALSE AND TRUE
            Object oTrue = true;
            Object oFalse = false;


            //CREATING OBJECTS OF WORD AND DOCUMENT
            Word.Application oWord = new Word.Application();

            var test = oWord.Application.Languages;

            foreach (var item in System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultures(System.Globalization.CultureTypes.AllCultures))
            {
                if (LanguageList._languageList.SingleOrDefault(i => i.Id.Equals(item.LCID)) != null)
                {
                    Debug.WriteLine(LanguageList._languageList.SingleOrDefault(i => i.Id.Equals(item.LCID)).Name +
                        " -- " +
                        item.EnglishName +
                        " -- " +
                        ((int)item.LCID).ToString()
                    );
                }
                else if (LanguageList._languageList.SingleOrDefault(i => i.Id.Equals(item.Parent.LCID)) != null)
                {
                    Debug.Indent();
                    Debug.WriteLine("-------- PARENT MATCH: " + item.EnglishName + " -- " + ((int)item.Parent.LCID).ToString());
                    Debug.Unindent();
                }
                else
                {
                    Debug.Indent();
                    Debug.WriteLine("!!!!!!!! NO MATCH: " + item.EnglishName + " -- " + ((int)item.LCID).ToString());
                    Debug.Unindent();
                }
            }

        }
    }

And the result was very lucky for me. In fact the Word.WdLanguageID matched all the CultureInfo.LCID values one for one, except for the legacy and exotic locales (which is not needed for my plugin).

Therefore I ended up not even needing the list of language strings returned by item.EnglishName such as Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan).

So I skipped the enumeration whole cloth. The code now runs in milliseconds as compared to the minutes it originally took to loop through all languages in the Word.Languages. I used the following code to set the language in the Word Document:

try
{
    oWord.Selection.LanguageID = (Word.WdLanguageID)intTgtLanguageId;
}
catch (Exception)
{
    oWord.Selection.LanguageID = (Word.WdLanguageID)0;
}

This sets all matching languages, casting the LCID to the correct Word.WdLanguageID constant. For those that are not matched, it sets it to "Not set".

Solution 2

I think you are looking for Microsoft's Locale ID (LCID) list: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964664.aspx

16,408

ib11

Updated on September 27, 2022

Comments

ib11 over 1 year

I've been searching for the answer over the net, but I don't seem to be able to find a comprehensive list of all languages available for my app with their exact display name. (I find many lists, but none of them seem to match the language strings I have. Read on.) The closest one I found is this one, but is not complete.

I am coding a plugin in C# where the text is exported from SDL Trados Studio to Word and the language is set accordingly in Word.

I need to write a custom method that casts these language names to their relevant Word.Language equivalent. This is because Trados (using the Windows cultures and .NET framework 4.5) has different language (locale) names than the Word.Language names.

While Hungarian is the same, TraditionalChinese (Word.Language) is Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan) in Trados.

I do have a comprehensive list for Word.Languages already:

public static class LanguageList
{
    public static readonly HashSet<LanguageItem> _languageList = new HashSet<LanguageItem>(new[]
    {
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Saudi Arabia)", 1025),
        new LanguageItem("Bulgarian", 1026),
        new LanguageItem("Catalan", 1027),
        new LanguageItem("Chinese (Taiwan)", 1028),
        new LanguageItem("Czech", 1029),
        new LanguageItem("Danish", 1030),
        new LanguageItem("German (Germany)", 1031),
        new LanguageItem("Greek", 1032),
        new LanguageItem("English (U.S.)", 1033),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Spain-Traditional Sort)", 1034),
        new LanguageItem("Finnish", 1035),
        new LanguageItem("French (France)", 1036),
        new LanguageItem("Hebrew", 1037),
        new LanguageItem("Hungarian", 1038),
        new LanguageItem("Icelandic", 1039),
        new LanguageItem("Italian (Italy)", 1040),
        new LanguageItem("Japanese", 1041),
        new LanguageItem("Korean", 1042),
        new LanguageItem("Dutch (Netherlands)", 1043),
        new LanguageItem("Norwegian (Bokmål)", 1044),
        new LanguageItem("Polish", 1045),
        new LanguageItem("Portuguese (Brazil)", 1046),
        new LanguageItem("Rhaeto-Romanic", 1047),
        new LanguageItem("Romanian (Romania)", 1048),
        new LanguageItem("Russian (Russia)", 1049),
        new LanguageItem("Croatian", 1050),
        new LanguageItem("Slovak", 1051),
        new LanguageItem("Albanian", 1052),
        new LanguageItem("Swedish (Sweden)", 1053),
        new LanguageItem("Thai", 1054),
        new LanguageItem("Turkish", 1055),
        new LanguageItem("Urdu", 1056),
        new LanguageItem("Indonesian", 1057),
        new LanguageItem("Ukrainian", 1058),
        new LanguageItem("Belarusian", 1059),
        new LanguageItem("Slovenian", 1060),
        new LanguageItem("Estonian", 1061),
        new LanguageItem("Latvian", 1062),
        new LanguageItem("Lithuanian", 1063),
        new LanguageItem("Tajik", 1064),
        new LanguageItem("Farsi", 1065),
        new LanguageItem("Vietnamese", 1066),
        new LanguageItem("Armenian", 1067),
        new LanguageItem("Azeri (Latin)", 1068),
        new LanguageItem("Basque", 1069),
        new LanguageItem("Sorbian", 1070),
        new LanguageItem("FYRO Macedonian", 1071),
        new LanguageItem("Sutu", 1072),
        new LanguageItem("Tsonga", 1073),
        new LanguageItem("Tswana", 1074),
        new LanguageItem("Venda", 1075),
        new LanguageItem("Xhosa", 1076),
        new LanguageItem("Zulu", 1077),
        new LanguageItem("Afrikaans", 1078),
        new LanguageItem("Georgian", 1079),
        new LanguageItem("Faeroese", 1080),
        new LanguageItem("Hindi", 1081),
        new LanguageItem("Maltese", 1082),
        new LanguageItem("Sami (Lappish)", 1083),
        new LanguageItem("Gaelic (Scotland)", 1084),
        new LanguageItem("Yiddish", 1085),
        new LanguageItem("Malay", 1086),
        new LanguageItem("Kazakh", 1087),
        new LanguageItem("Kyrgyz", 1088),
        new LanguageItem("Swahili", 1089),
        new LanguageItem("Turkmen", 1090),
        new LanguageItem("Uzbek (Latin)", 1091),
        new LanguageItem("Tatar", 1092),
        new LanguageItem("Bengali", 1093),
        new LanguageItem("Punjabi", 1094),
        new LanguageItem("Gujarati", 1095),
        new LanguageItem("Oriya", 1096),
        new LanguageItem("Tamil", 1097),
        new LanguageItem("Telugu", 1098),
        new LanguageItem("Kannada", 1099),
        new LanguageItem("Malayalam", 1100),
        new LanguageItem("Assamese", 1101),
        new LanguageItem("Marathi", 1102),
        new LanguageItem("Sanskrit", 1103),
        new LanguageItem("Mongolian", 1104),
        new LanguageItem("Tibetan (PRC)", 1105),
        new LanguageItem("Welsh", 1106),
        new LanguageItem("Khmer", 1107),
        new LanguageItem("Lao", 1108),
        new LanguageItem("Burmese", 1109),
        new LanguageItem("Galician", 1110),
        new LanguageItem("Konkani", 1111),
        new LanguageItem("Manipuri", 1112),
        new LanguageItem("Sindhi (Devanagari)", 1113),
        new LanguageItem("Syriac", 1114),
        new LanguageItem("Sinhalese", 1115),
        new LanguageItem("Cherokee", 1116),
        new LanguageItem("Inuktitut", 1117),
        new LanguageItem("Amharic", 1118),
        new LanguageItem("Tamazight", 1119),
        new LanguageItem("Kashmiri (Arabic)", 1120),
        new LanguageItem("Nepali", 1121),
        new LanguageItem("Frisian (Netherlands)", 1122),
        new LanguageItem("Pashto", 1123),
        new LanguageItem("Filipino", 1124),
        new LanguageItem("Divehi", 1125),
        new LanguageItem("Edo", 1126),
        new LanguageItem("Fulfulde", 1127),
        new LanguageItem("Hausa", 1128),
        new LanguageItem("Ibibio", 1129),
        new LanguageItem("Yoruba", 1130),
        new LanguageItem("Quechua (Bolivia)", 1131),
        new LanguageItem("Sepedi", 1132),
        new LanguageItem("Bashkir (Russia)", 1133),
        new LanguageItem("Luxembourgish (Luxembourg)", 1134),
        new LanguageItem("Greenlandic (Greenland)", 1135),
        new LanguageItem("Igbo", 1136),
        new LanguageItem("Kanuri", 1137),
        new LanguageItem("Oromo", 1138),
        new LanguageItem("Tigrigna (Ethiopia)", 1139),
        new LanguageItem("Guarani", 1140),
        new LanguageItem("Hawaiian", 1141),
        new LanguageItem("Latin", 1142),
        new LanguageItem("Somali", 1143),
        new LanguageItem("Yi", 1144),
        new LanguageItem("Papiamentu", 1145),
        new LanguageItem("Mapudungun (Chile)", 1146),
        new LanguageItem("Mohawk (Mohawk)", 1148),
        new LanguageItem("Breton (France)", 1150),
        new LanguageItem("Uyghur (PRC)", 1152),
        new LanguageItem("Maori", 1153),
        new LanguageItem("Occitan (France)", 1154),
        new LanguageItem("Corsican (France)", 1155),
        new LanguageItem("Alsatian (France)", 1156),
        new LanguageItem("Yakut (Russia)", 1157),
        new LanguageItem("K'iche (Guatemala)", 1158),
        new LanguageItem("Kinyarwanda (Rwanda)", 1159),
        new LanguageItem("Wolof (Senegal)", 1160),
        new LanguageItem("Dari (Afghanistan)", 1164),
        new LanguageItem("Scottish Gaelic (United Kingdom)", 1169),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Iraq)", 2049),
        new LanguageItem("Chinese (PRC)", 2052),
        new LanguageItem("German (Switzerland)", 2055),
        new LanguageItem("English (U.K.)", 2057),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Mexico)", 2058),
        new LanguageItem("French (Belgium)", 2060),
        new LanguageItem("Italian (Switzerland)", 2064),
        new LanguageItem("Dutch (Belgium)", 2067),
        new LanguageItem("Norwegian (Nynorsk)", 2068),
        new LanguageItem("Portuguese (Portugal)", 2070),
        new LanguageItem("Romanian (Moldova)", 2072),
        new LanguageItem("Russian (Moldova)", 2073),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Latin)", 2074),
        new LanguageItem("Swedish (Finland)", 2077),
        new LanguageItem("Azeri (Cyrillic)", 2092),
        new LanguageItem("Lower Sorbian (Germany)", 2094),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Northern (Sweden)", 2107),
        new LanguageItem("Gaelic (Ireland)", 2108),
        new LanguageItem("Malay (Brunei Darussalam)", 2110),
        new LanguageItem("Uzbek (Cyrillic)", 2115),
        new LanguageItem("Bengali (Bangladesh)", 2117),
        new LanguageItem("Punjabi (Pakistan)", 2118),
        new LanguageItem("Mongolian (Mongolian)", 2128),
        new LanguageItem("Tibetan (Bhutan)", 2129),
        new LanguageItem("Sindhi (Arabic)", 2137),
        new LanguageItem("Inuktitut (Latin, Canada)", 2141),
        new LanguageItem("Tamazight (Latin)", 2143),
        new LanguageItem("Kashmiri", 2144),
        new LanguageItem("Nepali (India)", 2145),
        new LanguageItem("Quechua (Ecuador)", 2155),
        new LanguageItem("Tigrigna (Eritrea)", 2163),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Egypt)", 3073),
        new LanguageItem("Chinese (Hong Kong S.A.R.)", 3076),
        new LanguageItem("German (Austria)", 3079),
        new LanguageItem("English (Australia)", 3081),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Spain-Modern Sort)", 3082),
        new LanguageItem("French (Canada)", 3084),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Cyrillic)", 3098),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Northern (Finland)", 3131),
        new LanguageItem("Quechua (Peru)", 3179),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Libya)", 4097),
        new LanguageItem("Chinese (Singapore)", 4100),
        new LanguageItem("German (Luxembourg)", 4103),
        new LanguageItem("English (Canada)", 4105),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Guatemala)", 4106),
        new LanguageItem("French (Switzerland)", 4108),
        new LanguageItem("Croatian (Latin, Bosnia and Herzegovina)", 4122),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Lule (Norway)", 4155),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Algeria)", 5121),
        new LanguageItem("Chinese (Macao S.A.R.)", 5124),
        new LanguageItem("German (Liechtenstein)", 5127),
        new LanguageItem("English (New Zealand)", 5129),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Costa Rica)", 5130),
        new LanguageItem("French (Luxembourg)", 5132),
        new LanguageItem("Bosnian (Latin, Bosnia and Herzegovina)", 5146),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Lule (Sweden)", 5179),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Morocco)", 6145),
        new LanguageItem("English (Ireland)", 6153),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Panama)", 6154),
        new LanguageItem("French (Monaco)", 6156),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Latin, Bosnia and Herzegovina)", 6170),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Southern (Norway)", 6203),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Tunisia)", 7169),
        new LanguageItem("English (South Africa)", 7177),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Dominican Republic)", 7178),
        new LanguageItem("French (West Indies)", 7180),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Cyrillic, Bosnia and Herzegovina)", 7194),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Southern (Sweden)", 7227),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Oman)", 8193),
        new LanguageItem("English (Jamaica)", 8201),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Venezuela)", 8202),
        new LanguageItem("French (Reunion)", 8204),
        new LanguageItem("Bosnian (Cyrillic, Bosnia and Herzegovina)", 8218),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Skolt (Finland)", 8251),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Yemen)", 9217),
        new LanguageItem("English (Caribbean)", 9225),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Colombia)", 9226),
        new LanguageItem("French (Congo (DRC))", 9228),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Latin, Serbia)", 9242),
        new LanguageItem("Sami, Inari (Finland)", 9275),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Syria)", 10241),
        new LanguageItem("English (Belize)", 10249),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Peru)", 10250),
        new LanguageItem("French (Senegal)", 10252),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Cyrillic, Serbia)", 10266),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Jordan)", 11265),
        new LanguageItem("English (Trinidad and Tobago)", 11273),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Argentina)", 11274),
        new LanguageItem("French (Cameroon)", 11276),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Latin, Montenegro)", 11290),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Lebanon)", 12289),
        new LanguageItem("English (Zimbabwe)", 12297),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Ecuador)", 12298),
        new LanguageItem("French (Cote d'Ivoire)", 12300),
        new LanguageItem("Serbian (Cyrillic, Montenegro)", 12314),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Kuwait)", 13313),
        new LanguageItem("English (Philippines)", 13321),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Chile)", 13322),
        new LanguageItem("French (Mali)", 13324),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (U.A.E)", 14337),
        new LanguageItem("English (Indonesia)", 14345),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Uruguay)", 14346),
        new LanguageItem("French (Morocco)", 14348),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Bahrain)", 15361),
        new LanguageItem("English (Hong Kong S.A.R.)", 15369),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Paraguay)", 15370),
        new LanguageItem("French (Haiti)", 15372),
        new LanguageItem("Arabic (Qatar)", 16385),
        new LanguageItem("English (India)", 16393),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Bolivia)", 16394),
        new LanguageItem("English (Malaysia)", 17417),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (El Salvador)", 17418),
        new LanguageItem("English (Singapore)", 18441),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Honduras)", 18442),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Nicaragua)", 19466),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (Puerto Rico)", 20490),
        new LanguageItem("Spanish (United States)", 21514),
    });

    public static LanguageItem GetLanguageItem(string languageName)
    {
        return _languageList.SingleOrDefault(li => li.Name.Equals(languageName));
    }
}

I am trying to find a comprehensive list of the locales used in the Windows cultures. The key point is that zh-TW needs to be Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan) and not something else. I did not manage to find such a list despite extensive searching already.

Edit:

To clarify, my question is, how to retrieve the the exact list in my code? I believe it is should be somewhere in the Windows cultures, such as CultureInfo.DisplayName or similar. Any idea?
What is the most effective method then to cast them over to the Word.LanguageID?

Update: See answer posted below for my solution to these questions. Still would appreciate any other suggestions.

Quality Catalyst almost 8 years

The list you are looking for is based on the ISO 693 standard (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes) which has changed over time and which will change again I assume. Also, this is not a programming question: you are looking for a resource ;-)
user1703401 almost 8 years

Nice thing about ISO is they provide so many standards to choose from.
ib11 almost 8 years

@HansPassant Yup, with none of them matching...
Preston Guillot almost 8 years

...where did you get the exact list in your code?
ib11 almost 8 years

@PrestonGuillot Your comment was very useful. I looked closer, and noted that it was an oversight to just use the enumeration. So I corrected the code using this: foreach (Word.Language item in oWord.Application.Languages) { Debug.WriteLine("new LanguageItem(\"" + item.NameLocal + "\", " + ((int)item.ID).ToString() + "),"); }

ib11 almost 8 years

Thanks for the tip. Is this collection exposed by the API? Maybe that's with it returned nothing. But this may be a good path to look.
Jenszcz almost 8 years

These collections can be accessed through the .NET interface of the dll, but you may not reference the dll in Studio plugins, if that's what you're trying to do. A text search will show you that the dll does contain the string Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan), but I did not figure out how to get there through the entry points provided by SDL.
Jenszcz almost 8 years

I'm afraid I could not come up with any way to access these resources in a way intended by SDL. And if you want to publish a plug-in for Studio you probably do not want to reverse-engineer the Studio dlls. Perhaps you could ask the SDL community developers ?
Jenszcz almost 8 years

You are right: some of these names (and codes) come from CultureInfo objects from different Windows versions. However, others come from earlier products (SDLX and Trados Workbench). That's what the enum Sdl.LanguagePlatform.Lingua.Locales.LocaleSource has been put in for, I believe.
ib11 almost 8 years

Thanks for your help! See my posted answer.