[MS-LCID]:
Windows Language Code Identifier (LCID) Reference
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Revision Summary
Date / Revision History / Revision Class / Comments /2/14/2008 / 2.1.3 / Editorial / Changed language and formatting in the technical content.
3/14/2008 / 2.1.4 / Editorial / Changed language and formatting in the technical content.
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7/25/2008 / 2.1.6 / Editorial / Changed language and formatting in the technical content.
8/29/2008 / 2.2 / Minor / Clarified the meaning of the technical content.
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Glossary 5
1.2 References 6
1.2.1 Normative References 6
1.2.2 Informative References 6
1.3 Overview 6
1.4 Relationship to Protocols and Other Structures 7
1.5 Applicability Statement 7
1.6 Versioning and Localization 7
1.7 Vendor-Extensible Fields 7
2 Structures 8
2.1 Language Code Identifiers 8
2.2 LCID Structure 8
2.2.1 Locale Names without LCIDs 24
3 Structure Examples 38
4 Security Considerations 39
5 Appendix A: Product Behavior 40
6 Change Tracking 69
7 Index 70
1 Introduction
This document provides an overview of language code identifiers (LCIDs), also known as culture identifiers, which are being deprecated, and the preferred alternate system of locale codes, which specify a set of locale identifiers that designate culture-specific information such as how text is sorted, how a date is formatted, and the display format for numbers and currency.
Sections 1.7 and 2 of this specification are normative. All other sections and examples in this specification are informative.
1.1 Glossary
This document uses the following terms:
alternate sort: Specifies an alternate collation for a language that has multiple methods for sorting data. For example, German has both "Dictionary" and "Phone Book" sorts. "Dictionary" sorting (de-DE) is the default for German, but developers can specify the alternate "Phone Book" sort (de-DE_phoneb) explicitly.
Chinese BIG5 order: Ideographs are ordered according to the code point values of the Taiwanese BIG5 industrial standard.
Chinese radical/stroke order: Ideographs are ordered according to radical stroke count.
Chinese Unicode order: Deprecated. Identical to the default sort information used for English.
Georgian modern order: An order for the Georgian language that places archaic characters that are no longer used at the end of the alphabet.
Georgian traditional order: An order for the Georgian language that intersperses archaic characters that are no longer used among the rest of the alphabet in their traditional places.
German phone book order: An order that equates Ä, Ö, and Ü with AE, OE, and UE, respectively (commonly used in German phone books).
Hungarian default order: The typical expected alphabetical order for the Hungarian language.
Hungarian technical order: A sort order that places capital letters before lowercase ones, unlike most sorts, which sort lowercase first.
Japanese radical/stroke sort order: Ideographs are ordered by their radical and stroke components, much like an ideographic dictionary might do.
Japanese Unicode order: Deprecated. Identical to the default sort information used for English, except that the backslash (\) is equal to the currency symbol, 0x00A5, the yen sign.
Japanese XJIS order: Ideographs are ordered according to the code point values of the [JIS X 208] and [JIS X 212] government standards.
Korean KSC order: Ideographs are ordered according to the Korean Hangul pronunciation, as specified in the Korean [KSC5601] government standard.
Korean Unicode order: Deprecated. Identical to the default sort information used for English, except that the backslash (\) is equal to the currency symbol, 0x20A9, the won sign.
neutral locale: A locale describing a language without any region-specific information.
PRC Chinese phonetic order: Ideographs are ordered according to their A to Z pronunciation order.
PRC Chinese stroke count order: Ideographs are ordered according to their stroke count.
specific locale: A locale describing a language that has a qualifying regional variant. For example, variants for English can be en-US or en-GB.
Traditional Chinese Bopomofo order: Ideographs are ordered by their most common Mandarin pronunciation, using the Chinese Bopomofo order of the pronunciations.
MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.
1.2 References
Links to a document in the Microsoft Open Specifications library point to the correct section in the most recently published version of the referenced document. However, because individual documents in the library are not updated at the same time, the section numbers in the documents may not match. You can confirm the correct section numbering by checking the Errata.
1.2.1 Normative References
We conduct frequent surveys of the normative references to assure their continued availability. If you have any issue with finding a normative reference, please contact . We will assist you in finding the relevant information.
[ISO-15924] International Organization for Standardization, "ISO 15924 Registration Authority", http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/
[ISO-3166] International Organization for Standardization, "Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part1: Country codes", ISO 3166-1:2013, November 2013, http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=63545
Note There is a charge to download the specification.
[ISO-639] International Organization for Standardization, "Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 code", ISO 639-2:1998, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=4767
Note There is a charge to download this specification.
[MS-DTYP] Microsoft Corporation, "Windows Data Types".
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997, http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
[RFC5646] Phillips, A, and Davis, M., "Tags for Identifying Languages", BCP 47, RFC 4646, September 2006, http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/bcp/bcp47.txt
1.2.2 Informative References
[KSC5601] Korea Industrial Standards Association, "Code for Information Interchange (Hangul and Hanja)", Korean Industrial Standard, 1987, Ref. No. KS C 5601-1987.
1.3 Overview
The LCID structure is used to identify specific languages for the purpose of customizing software for particular languages and cultures. For example, it can specify the way dates, times, and numbers are formatted as strings. It can also specify paper sizes and preferred sort order based on language elements.
LCIDs are being deprecated, and implementers are strongly encouraged to use locale names instead. LCIDs can be used for backward compatibility, but as noted in section 2.2.1, there is no guarantee of LCID uniqueness when used with valid locale names not otherwise associated with an LCID.
1.4 Relationship to Protocols and Other Structures
This structure is related to protocols and structures that need to make special cases for specific languages and cultures.
1.5 Applicability Statement
This structure applies in scenarios where special cases need to be made for specific languages and cultures.
1.6 Versioning and Localization
This structure serves to identify particular languages, locales, and cultures.
1.7 Vendor-Extensible Fields
None.
2 Structures
2.1 Language Code Identifiers
LCIDs are identifiers used to specify localizable information. They are also known as culture identifiers in the Microsoft .NET Framework environment.
The name of a culture consists of its [ISO-639] language code, its [ISO-3166] country/region code, and an optional [ISO-15924] script tag for the written language. For example, the name of the culture in which the language is Bosnian (as written in Latin script and used in the Bosnia and Herzegovina region) is bs-Latn-BA.<1<2<3>
2.2 LCID Structure
This protocol references commonly used data types as defined in [MS-DTYP].
An LCID is a 4-byte value. The value supplied in an LCID is a standard numeric substitution for the international [RFC5646] string.
The following diagram is shown in host byte order.
0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 2
0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 3
0 / 1
Reserved / Sort ID / Language ID
Reserved (12 bits): This field is reserved for future use. It MUST be 0.
Sort ID (4 bits): The sort order. In most cases, this value can be 0x0, which indicates a default sort (SORT_DEFAULT). However, other values can be used when an alternate sort is required. These alternate values are listed in the following table. For example, 0x0407 (German - Germany) becomes 0x10407 when SORT_GERMAN_PHONE_BOOK is used.