Finding Language Explorer's internal name for your language and writing system

Language Explorer has a special internal name for every language and writing system. One of the great features of Language Explorer is that is supports complexity in languages and writing systems. Here are two ways to get the internal name of a language, which is something that is required from time to time on this site.

From Language Explorer

  1. Starting from the Language Explorer window, go to the Tools menu and then Configure and then Set up Writing Systems...
  2. Here you see two lists of writing systems, one with Vernacular Writing Systems, and one with Analysis Writing Systems. Select the writing system you want. Click “Modify...”
  3. In the lower-right side of the screen, above the OK button, the internal code is indicated, e.g., “Internal code: wbl-Arab-AF”. There it is: wbl-Arab-AF

From a FlexText (.flextext) file

Open the .flextext file in a text editor. It will look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<document version="2">
  <interlinear-text guid="ac78138f-09e4-4af4-85ae-84d8b43c0fa0">
    <item type="title" lang="wbl-Arab-AF"></item>
    <item type="title" lang="en">WA002</item>
    <paragraphs>
      <paragraph guid="99067e1c-b48d-4431-b8fe-d232247b3b97">
        <phrases>
          <phrase guid="afc687c1-e0c4-4fa0-b2aa-513c810d21ec">
            <item type="segnum" lang="en">1</item>
            <words>
              <word guid="a47e78ea-9501-4d62-a9fe-01e72ded1934">
                <item type="txt" lang="wbl-Arab-AF">سَکڜ</item>
                <item type="txt" lang="wbl-Qaaa-AF-fonipa-x-Zipa">sækəʂ</item>
              </word>

If you can find some word you recognize, then look to the left of that word for the thing that looks like lang="wbl-Arab-AF". The bit inside the quotes is the internal name: wbl-Arab-AF. So for instance, I know that سَکڜ is a Wakhi word in Wakhi orthography. I look to the left, and I see that the internal name for that writing system is wbl-Arab-AF.

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