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Language code: zho

Technical information about ISO 639 language code zho

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Chinese language, designated by the zho code from the ISO 639-2 standard.

Code

zho (Terminology)

Standard

ISO 639-2, ISO 639-3

Name

Official

Chinese

Native

中文

Scripts
Han (Simplified variant)
Han (Traditional variant)
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
MandarinWuYueMinXiangGanHakkaJinHuizhouPinghua
Related languages
DunganTibetanBurmeseBaiJingpho
Key facts
Characters are logograms rather than alphabeticMandarin has four lexical tones, while some dialects have up to nineThe Chinese script is the oldest continuously used writing system still in daily useChinese grammar is highly analytic, with almost no inflection for tense or numberHanyu Pinyin, created in the 1950s, is now the dominant romanization for teaching pronunciation.
Sample phrase

你好，你好吗？

Character encodings

GBK, GB2312, GB18030, Big5, Big5-HKSCS, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

The Chinese language, identified by the code zho, falls under the 'Macrolanguage' category in terms of its scope and is classified as 'Living' by its type.

The ISO 639-2 standard offers two codes for the Chinese language: zho for terminology purposes and chi for bibliographic uses.

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