Language Code Picker
Picks a real ISO 639 language code on its own — no region attached, unlike the site's locale picker — for testing language-only fields such as a translation key or content-language tag.
What this generator does
Draws a real ISO 639 language code on its own — the language and nothing else. Distinct from the site's locale picker, which pairs a language with a region, because the two answer different questions: the language decides what words to use and the region decides date, number and currency formatting.
What you'll get
This generator draws from a hand-checked list of 20 entries. Here is a spread of 6 of them, so you can see the style before you generate:
- en — English
- es — Spanish
- nl — Dutch
- zh — Chinese
- ru — Russian
- el — Greek
A fixed sample of the list, not a live draw — your own results are picked at random from all 20, without repeating until the list runs out. ISO 639-1 language codes (public standard, well-known codes).. Last reviewed 2026-07-18.
How to use this tool
- Press generate for a language code.
- Generate again for a different one.
Common use cases
- Testing language-only fields
- Populating a language-picker demo
- Documentation examples
Limitations and good to know
- ISO 639 has several parts with overlapping code sets, and a few languages have both a two-letter and a three-letter code. Check which set your system expects before using a code from here.
Entries are chosen with your browser's cryptographic random number generator, so every entry on the list is equally likely. How Generate Random works.
Frequently asked questions
- When would I need a language code without a region, rather than a full locale?
- When the field genuinely only cares about language — a translation key, a content-language HTTP header, or a document's declared language attribute. A full locale like en-GB is for anything that also needs regional formatting; a bare language code like en is for anything that explicitly doesn't.