Extended languages in HOLLIS (adding ISO 639-3)

Background

The traditional list of ~400 languages (“MARC languages”) used in library cataloging is maintained by the Library of Congress.
An extended list of ~ 8,000 languages (ISO 639-3) has been permitted in library cataloging since approximately 2022. See cataloging “Guidelines for the use of ISO 639-3 language codes in MARC records.”

Languages from both lists (MARC, ISO-639-3) are translated from their 3-character codes to their display names and shown in the Details section.
Languages from other source codes such as ‘austlang’ are not displayed.
All codes in fields 008/041 are searchable in the Advanced Search “Code: Language” field, regardless of which language scheme is used. See Source Codes at the Library of Congress.
In the Language facet/filter, only MARC languages are listed.

Title	Details display	Searchable codes	Facet values

Title	Details display	Searchable codes	Facet values
The Asmat languages of Irian Jaya	Tamnim Citak Sorsogon Ayta North Asmat Casuarina Coast Asmat Central Asmat English	tml ays nks asc cns eng	English
Tarānahʹhā-yi Lakī va Lurī Khurramʹābād	Kurdish Southern Kurdish Persian	kur sdh per	Kurdish Persian
Ecoute le bambou qui pleure	French 'Are'are	fre alu	French
Tututa : composic̦ões	Creoles and pidgins, Portuguese-based Kabuverdianu	cpp kea	Creoles and pidgins, Portuguese-based

iso639-3.sil.org is the source of the codes and official maintainer of the list. The tables used in HOLLIS were downloaded from https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/download_tables in July 2025.

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