Languages¶

A language is one entry of Wiktionary's Module:languages, or one etymology-only variety from Module:etymology languages. There are 8,970 of them in the bundled catalog: 7,921 regular, 295 reconstructed, 31 appendix-constructed and 723 etymology-only.

Looking one up¶

By code, which is what Wiktionary's templates take, or by name, which is the heading of a language's section in an entry:

Language.of("en")                  // English (en); throws IllegalArgumentException for an unknown code
Language["xx"]                     // null
"ang" in Language                  // true
Language.named("Old English")      // Old English (ang)
Language.all.size                  // 8970

try Language.of("en")              // English (en); throws PolyglossaError.unknownLanguage
Language["xx"]                     // nil
Language.contains("ang")           // true
Language.named("Old English")      // Old English (ang)
Language.all.count                 // 8970

Language.of("en").code             # 'en'; raises UnknownLanguageError, as Language["xx"] does
Language.get("xx")                 # None
"ang" in Language                  # True
Language.named("Old English").code # 'ang'
len(Language.all())                # 8970

named takes the name exactly as Wiktionary writes it, with spaces around it trimmed. When a full language and an etymology-only variety share a name, the full language wins.

What a language holds¶

Kinds of language¶

The type decides where a language's entries live on Wiktionary:

Language.of("ine-pro").type        // RECONSTRUCTED
Language.of("en-US").etymologyOnly // true

try Language.of("ine-pro").type    // .reconstructed
try Language.of("en-US").isEtymologyOnly   // true

Language["ine-pro"].type           # <LanguageType.RECONSTRUCTED: 'reconstructed'>
Language["en-US"].is_etymology_only   # True

Etymology-only varieties¶

An etymology-only variety, such as American English or Limousin, belongs to a language through its parent, which may itself be another variety. full follows the parents to the language whose section the term would go in:

val american = Language.of("en-US")
american.parent                    // North American English (en-NNN)
american.full                      // English (en)
american.family                    // Anglic (gmw-ang), its language's

let american = try Language.of("en-US")
american.parent                    // North American English (en-NNN)
american.full                      // English (en)
american.family                    // Anglic (gmw-ang), its language's

american = Language["en-US"]
american.parent.code               # 'en-NNN'
american.full.code                 # 'en'
american.family.code               # 'gmw-ang', its language's

A variety with no family of its own has that of the nearest of its parents that has one, and one with no scripts of its own is detected in its language's scripts.

Ancestors¶

ancestors are the languages Wiktionary says a language comes from directly. Following them walks the history back as far as Wiktionary records it, which for English is Middle English; the family's proto-language takes it further:

generateSequence(Language.of("en")) { it.ancestors.firstOrNull() }.map { it.name }.toList()
// [English, Early Modern English, Middle English]

var language: Language? = try Language.of("en")
var line: [String] = []
while let current = language {
    line.append(current.name)
    language = current.ancestors.first
}
// ["English", "Early Modern English", "Middle English"]

line, language = [], Language["en"]
while language:
    line.append(language.name)
    language = language.ancestors[0] if language.ancestors else None
line
# ['English', 'Early Modern English', 'Middle English']

Varieties without a code¶

Wiktionary names some varieties of a language, such as dialects, without giving them a code. They are varieties, each a name and the other names it goes by:

Language.of("de").varieties.take(3).map { it.name }   // [Alsatian German, American German, Bavarian German]

try Language.of("de").varieties.prefix(3).map(\.name)   // ["Alsatian German", "American German", "Bavarian German"]

[v.name for v in Language["de"].varieties[:3]]   # ['Alsatian German', 'American German', 'Bavarian German']