Language A locale's language is specified by the ISO 639 standard. The following table lists some commonly used language codes. Language Code Language en English nl Dutch fr French es Spanish zh Chinese ja Japanese vi Vietnamese Because language is correlated with geography, a language code might not capture all the nuances of usage in a particular area. For example, French and Canadian French may use different phrases and terms to mean different things even though basic grammar and vocabulary are the same. Language is only one element of locale.