How do I create a new language for translation?

Created by Christian Reis
Keywords:
language translation
Last updated by:
Max Bowsher

Creating a new language requires that you ask a question on https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/ about it, while providing some further details.

To create a new language in Launchpad, we usually need an ISO code for that language (eg. "fr" for French or "de" for German). Launchpad does not support language codes with attached variants, e.g. "be@latin".

If there is no ISO 639 two-letter ("alpha-2") code for your language, we can also use a three-letter code, and if it doesn't exist, you can ask for one on the ISO committee pages: http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/
(where you can also check if there is an existing code).

We also need to have plural form information. Please read this help page about how to provide this information:
https://help.launchpad.net/Translations/PluralForms

Once language is added to our database, you can start translating right away.

If you want to translate Ubuntu, there is an additional step involved, and that's registering a team named "ubuntu-l10n-LL" where "LL" is your language code, and then we can restrict access to translating to that
language to that team exclusively.