How to get the default languge from the ICU library by Country Code

Question

en_US gives me en for English but it's already in the code

I need US to return en for English or 'DE' to return de for German

echo Locale::getPrimaryLanguage('en_US');
echo Locale::getPrimaryLanguage('US');

Both of the above should output en, but the latter actually outputs us.

You can use the Unicode CLDR [likely subtags data](http://cldr.unicode.org/index/cldr-spec/language-tag-equivalences#TOC-Likely-subtags) to get the “default” or “likely” language for a specific country, see https://stackoverflow.com/a/58512299/1031606 — ausi, Oct 22 '19 at 21:12

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 25 '12 at 20:14

getPrimaryLanguage is not an ICU function so I have no idea how it's implemented. In ICU you could call uloc_addLikelySubtags which would expand und_US (You would put und for unknown before the region code US) to en_US or und_DE to de_DE - and then, calling uloc_getLanguage would return en, de, etc.

Your result of us for US is probably due to US being interpreted as a language code. You could try und_US to see what the behavior is.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 29 '12 at 01:35

like @Steven R. Loomis said you can use a locale 'und_US' and Locale::getPrimaryLanguage('und_US') will just return 'und'

If using the php intl extension, it can accept a locale of 'und_US' , but it will no format your currencies properly according to the region US only, you need to specify a language.

$locales = array('de_DE', 'en_US', 'ja_JP', 'und_US', 'und_JP', 'und_DE', 'und_FR');
$amount = 1234567.891234567890000;
foreach ($locales as $locale) {
        echo Locale::getPrimaryLanguage($locale).'<br />';
        $formatter = new NumberFormatter($locale, NumberFormatter::CURRENCY); 
        echo $formatter->getTextAttribute(NumberFormatter::CURRENCY_CODE); 
        echo '|' . $formatter->getSymbol(NumberFormatter::CURRENCY_SYMBOL);
        echo '|' . $formatter->getSymbol(NumberFormatter::INTL_CURRENCY_SYMBOL);
        echo ' - ' . $formatter->formatCurrency($amount, $formatter->getTextAttribute(NumberFormatter::CURRENCY_CODE));
        echo '<br /><br />';
}

returns

de EUR|€|EUR - 1.234.567,89 €

en USD|$|USD - $1,234,567.89

ja JPY|￥|JPY - ￥1,234,568

und USD|$|USD - $ 1234567.89

und JPY|¥|JPY - ¥ 1234568

und EUR|€|EUR - € 1234567.89

und EUR|€|EUR - € 1234567.89

notice how even though you are given the correct currency symbol for the region, the format of the number is incorrect.

How to get the default languge from the ICU library by Country Code

2 Answers2