Babel/text

User language boxes list the languages a Wikimedia editor is comfortable communicating in, and their proficiency. This improves communication across the diverse community, both directly and by helping find interpreters and translators.

Usage

Babel user information
ru-N Русский — родной язык этого участника. en-5 This user has professional knowledge of English. fr-1 Cet utilisateur dispose de connaissances de base en français.
Users by language

You can add user information to your user page by inserting code like this:

{{#babel:ru-N|en-5|fr-1}}

This outputs the boxes you see at right. You can add as many languages as you want, in the form language code-proficiency level.

Language code

The extension recognizes standard ISO 639 (1–3) language codes. You can find your language by searching the list of ISO 639-1 codes or a database of ISO 639 1–3 codes.

Proficiency

The proficiency describes how well you can communicate in the language. It's indicated by a single character from the Proficiency column in the table below:

Proficiency	Meaning
0	You don't understand the language at all.
1	You can understand written material or simple questions.
2	You can edit simple texts or participate in basic discussions.
3	You can write in this language with some minor errors
4	You can speak like a native speaker (though it's not your birth language).
5	You have professional proficiency; you understand the nuances of the language well enough to translate advanced documents.
N	You are a native speaker of the language and have a thorough grasp of it, including colloquialisms and idioms.

Custom layout (Metawiki only)

The boxes are neatly stacked along the right side of the page by default, but you can suppress the floating and header by wrapping it in the babel-plain class. For example:

{{babel-plain|en-N|fr-3|az-0}}
-or-
<div class="babel-plain">{{#babel:en-N|fr-3|az-0}}</div>

This only works on Metawiki, due to its custom CSS.

See also

• mw:Extension:Babel (the underlying software extension)
• Language combination indicators for translators
• Historical
  • Meta's alternative system (2008–2011)
  • Vote to enable extension (2008–2011)