Nota Bene: It is highly recommended that the user of this document read the Introduction to obtain a fuller understanding of Dublin Core and its implementation.
As stated in the introduction, the language element is the language of the document and the LANG qualifier is the language of the Dublin Core elements describing the document. As with many other DC elements, no TYPE qualifier has been specified.
| SCHEME | LANG |
|---|---|
(language name) | (default=English) Standard ISO 639 |
The Z3953 codes are a standard registry of language tags. At present, they consist of three alphabetic characters, usually in the form of the first three letters of the language name (e.g English is ENG).
ISO639 standard registry codes can be used for both the LANG qualifier and the language DC element. The first set of ISO639 codes consisted of only two characters. The second set consists of three to nine character codes. Users of the second set must be aware that they are still on the table to be accepted as a standard, so use them with caution. The link above and in the bibliography combines both sets. This site also provides separate links to set one (ISO639) and set 2 (ISO639-2). Examples of language elements for documents in English are:
<META NAME="DC.language" CONTENT="English">
<META NAME="DC.language" CONTENT="(SCHEME=Z3953) ENG">
<META NAME="DC.language" CONTENT="(SCHEME=ISO639) en">
<META NAME="DC.language" CONTENT="(SCHEME=ISO639-2) en-cokney">
The first example uses the complete spelling of the name in its natural language. This is the metadata elements for freetext, the default value. Again, because the qualifier is default, the (SCHEME=freetext) may be omitted.
Please send your questions, comments, or suggestions to
gfrost@valdosta.edu
Copyright ©1997 by Guy Frost
Last Updated July 27, 1997