Resources & Guides

Koha Available Translations

Complete list of language translations available for Koha ILS, including language codes, scripts, and regional variants.

7 min read

Koha supports over 100 language translations, making it one of the most internationally accessible library management systems available.

Available Translations

Europe

Language Code Script Notes
Basque eu Latin -
Belarusian be-BY Cyrillic Belarus
Bulgarian bg-Cyrl Cyrillic -
Catalan ca-ES Latin Spain
Croatian hr-HR Latin Croatia
Czech cs-CZ Latin Czech Republic
Danish da-DK Latin Denmark
Dutch (Belgium) nl-BE Latin Belgium
Dutch (Netherlands) nl-NL Latin Netherlands
English (Great Britain) en-GB Latin United Kingdom
English (New Zealand) en-NZ Latin New Zealand
Esperanto eo Latin International auxiliary
Estonian et Latin -
Faroese fo-FO Latin Faroe Islands
Finnish fi-FI Latin Finland
French (Canada) fr-CA Latin Canada
French (France) fr-FR Latin France
Galician gl Latin Spain
German (Austria) de-CH Latin Switzerland
German (Germany) de-DE Latin Germany
Greek el-GR Greek Greece
Hungarian hu-HU Latin Hungary
Icelandic is-IS Latin Iceland
Irish ga Latin Ireland
Italian it-IT Latin Italy
Latvian lv Latin -
Norwegian Bokmål nb-NO Latin Norway
Norwegian Nynorsk nn-NO Latin Norway
Occitan oc Latin Southern France
Polish pl-PL Latin Poland
Portuguese (Brazil) pt-BR Latin Brazil
Portuguese (Portugal) pt-PT Latin Portugal
Romanian ro-RO Latin Romania
Russian ru-RU Cyrillic Russia
Scottish Gaelic gd Latin Scotland
Serbian sr-Cyrl Cyrillic -
Slovak sk-SK Latin Slovakia
Slovenian sl-SI Latin Slovenia
Spanish es-ES Latin Spain
Swedish sv-SE Latin Sweden
Turkish tr-TR Latin Turkey
Ukrainian uk-UA Cyrillic Ukraine
Welsh cy-GB Latin Wales

Asia & Middle East

Language Code Script Notes
Albanian sq-AL Latin Albania
Arabic ar-Arab Arabic -
Armenian (Eastern) hy-Armn Armenian -
Armenian (Western) hyw-Armn Armenian -
Assamese as-IN Bengali India
Azerbaijani az-AZ Latin Azerbaijan
Bengali bn-IN Bengali India
Chinese (Simplified) zh-Hans-CN Han (Simplified) China
Chinese (Traditional) zh-Hant-TW Han (Traditional) Taiwan
Dzongkha dz Tibetan Bhutan
Georgian ka Georgian -
Hebrew he-Hebr Hebrew -
Hindi hi Devanagari India
Indonesian id-ID Latin Indonesia
Interlingua ia Latin Auxiliary
Japanese ja-Jpan-JP Japanese (Kanji, Kana) Japan
Kannada kn-Knda Kannada India
Kazakh kk-KZ Cyrillic Kazakhstan
Khmer km-KH Khmer Cambodia
Korean ko-Kore-KP Hangul North Korea
Kurdish ku-Arab Arabic -
Lao lo-Laoo Lao -
Malay ms-MY Latin Malaysia
Malayalam ml Malayalam India
Marathi mr Devanagari India
Mongolian mon Cyrillic -
Burmese my Myanmar -
Nepali ne-NE Devanagari Nepal
Persian (Farsi) fa-Arab Arabic Iran
Dari (Afghan Persian) prs Arabic Afghanistan
Sindhi sd-PK Arabic Pakistan
Sinhala si Sinhala Sri Lanka
Tamil (India) ta Tamil India
Tamil (Sri Lanka) ta-LK Tamil Sri Lanka
Telugu te Telugu India
Tetum tet Latin East Timor
Thai th-TH Thai Thailand
Tibetan bo-CN Tibetan China
Turkmen tk Latin Turkmenistan
Urdu ur-Arab Arabic Pakistan
Uzbek uz Latin Uzbekistan
Vietnamese vi-VN Latin Vietnam

Africa

Language Code Script Notes
Amharic am-Ethi Ethiopic Ethiopia
Kinyarwanda rw-RW Latin Rwanda
Swahili sw-KE Latin Kenya

Pacific

Language Code Script Notes
Inuktitut iu-CA Canadian Aboriginal Canada
Inuktitut (Latin) iq-CA Latin Canada
Māori mi-NZ Latin New Zealand
Breton pbr Latin Brittany, France
Tahitian ty Latin French Polynesia
Tagalog tl-PH Latin Philippines
Tuvaluan tvl Latin Tuvalu

Using Language Codes

In CloudFormation Deployments

When deploying Koha via CloudFormation templates, use the InstallLanguages parameter:

# Single language
InstallLanguages: es-ES

# Multiple languages (comma-separated)
InstallLanguages: es-ES,fr-FR,de-DE,it-IT

Important:

  • English (en) is always installed by default
  • Use exact codes from the tables above
  • Separate multiple languages with commas (no spaces)
  • Language files are installed during initial deployment

Changing Languages After Installation

To add or update translations after deployment:

  1. Via SSH (if KeyPair configured): 
    sudo koha-translate --install es-ES
sudo koha-translate --update es-ES
  2. List installed languages: 
    sudo koha-translate --list
  3. Via Koha Admin Interface:
    • Navigate to Administration → System Preferences
    • Go to I18N/L10N section
    • Configure language and opaclanguages preferences

Language Selection in Koha

Staff Interface

  1. Login screen: Choose language from dropdown
  2. User preferences: Set default language per staff account
  3. System-wide: Configure in I18N/L10N preferences

OPAC (Public Catalog)

  1. Top navigation: Language selector (if multiple languages enabled)
  2. Per-user: Browser language detection
  3. System preference: opaclanguages controls available OPAC languages

Translation Coverage

Translation completeness varies by language:

  • 100% Complete: Major European languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian)
  • 90%+ Complete: Most actively maintained languages
  • Partial: Newer or less-maintained translations

Check current translation status at Koha Translation Project.

Contributing Translations

Want to improve Koha translations?

  1. Join the community: Koha Translation Wiki
  2. Translation tool: Pootle Translation Server
  3. Mailing list: Subscribe to koha-translate mailing list

Script Information

Koha supports multiple writing systems:

  • Latin (Western Europe, Americas)
  • Cyrillic (Eastern Europe, Central Asia)
  • Arabic (Middle East, North Africa)
  • CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
  • Indic (South Asian scripts)
  • Others (Hebrew, Georgian, Armenian, Thai, etc.)

Right-to-left (RTL) languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian are fully supported with appropriate interface mirroring.

See Also

Next Steps

After Deployment
Post-Installation Setup
Recommended
Security Best Practices
Keep It Running
Monitoring & Maintenance

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