Supported languages

PolyLingo supports 36 base languages and 7 regional variants — 43 language codes in total. Pass any code from the tables below as a value in the targets array of any translate endpoint.

Base languages

Regional variants

Regional variants use BCP-47 language-region subtag codes — the same convention used by browsers, operating systems, and i18n frameworks. Use them when your audience expects a specific regional register, vocabulary, or spelling convention.

When to use a regional variant

Use the generic code (fr, es, pt) when you need broad coverage or when your audience spans multiple regions. Use a regional code when your content targets a specific market — for example, pt-BR for a Brazilian product or en-GB for a UK publication.

Regional codes and their generic counterparts can be mixed freely in the same request:

{
  "targets": ["fr", "fr-CA", "pt", "pt-BR"]
}

The response includes a separate translation keyed by each code you requested:

{
  "translations": {
    "fr":    "Bonjour le monde",
    "fr-CA": "Allô le monde",
    "pt":    "Olá mundo",
    "pt-BR": "Olá mundo"
  }
}

Discover languages at runtime

GET /languages returns the live canonical list — no hardcoding required:

curl https://api.usepolylingo.com/v1/languages

Response includes every supported code with its display name and RTL flag:

{
  "languages": [
    { "code": "en",    "name": "English",           "rtl": false },
    { "code": "en-GB", "name": "English (UK)",       "rtl": false },
    { "code": "fr",    "name": "French",             "rtl": false },
    { "code": "fr-CA", "name": "French (Canada)",    "rtl": false }
  ]
}

RTL languages

Arabic (ar), Hebrew (he), and Persian/Farsi (fa) are right-to-left. For plain and markdown output the API returns translated text only — set text direction in your UI using CSS direction: rtl or a parent element's dir="rtl" attribute. For html format, dir="rtl" is added to appropriate block-level elements automatically. See the API reference for details.