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Abstract

REQUIRED REPEATABLE MULTILINGUAL

MODS Element name: <language>

Short definition: A designation of the language in which the content of a resource is expressed.

Input guidelines: Enter the full (English) language name in the Language Name text field, as found in the list of language Reference Names provided by SIL: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/download_tables. Capitalize the first letter of the name. If the asset does not contain linguistic content, enter "not applicable" (no capitalization). In the Language Code field, indicate the language of the resource by entering the appropriate three-letter language code from ISO-639-3 language codes. If the language name is given as 'not applicable' (the asset does not contain linguistic content), use code 'zxx'.

Definition

A designation of the language in which the content of a resource is expressed.

DAMS input form fields

Language(s)

DAMS form field name

form field type

required

MODS element

Collections Portal display

notes

Language Name

text field

yes

Language

(multiple values concatenated by comma, and)

Enter the full (English) language name in the Language Name text field, as found in the list of language Reference Names provided by SIL: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/download_tables. Capitalize the first letter of the name.

If the asset does not contain linguistic content, enter "not applicable" (no capitalization).

Language Code

text field

yes

N/A

Enter ISO-639-3 language code (3 letters). If the language name is given as 'not applicable' (the asset does not contain linguistic content), use code 'zxx' (https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/zxx).

MODS Element description

Element <language>

http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/userguide/language.html

Guidelines for use

<language> is a container element; the actual language values are recorded in the subelement <languageTerm>.

Attributes

Currently no attributes for language are implemented in the DAMS.

Subelements

The following subelement of language is used in the DAMS:

languageTerm

Subelement <language><languageTerm>

Guidelines for use

Designate the languages in which the content of a resource is expressed. Enter the English name of the language or the default: "not applicable".

Attributes

Element Parts	Details	XPath syntax examples
type	values: text code Designate if the element value of languageTerm is textual information or a 3-letter code from the ISO-639-3 list.	languageTerm[@type="text"] languageTerm[@type="code"]
authority	Only applicable when type attribute is "code". ISO 639-3 is the preferred authority for language names and codes. Especially if metadata is transformed from MARC, specifying ISO 639-2b as authority is acceptable as well. value: iso639-3 iso639-2b	languageTerm[@authority="iso639-3"]
authorityURI	Only applicable when type attribute is "code". ISO 639-3 is the preferred authority for language names and codes. Especially if metadata is transformed from MARC, specifying ISO 639-2b as authority is acceptable as well. values: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/639/data http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2	languageTerm[@authorityURI="https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/639/data"]
lang	Only applicable when type attribute is "text". value: eng	languageTerm[@lang="eng"]

Subelements

No subelements for languageTerm.

XML Examples

<language>
	<languageTerm type="text" lang="eng">English</languageTerm>
	<languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b" authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2">eng</languageTerm>
</language>

Mappings

Dublin Core

Depending on the direction of mapping necessary, check

DC to MODS: https://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/dcsimple-mods.html
MODS to DC: http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-dcsimple.html

MARC 21

see http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-mapping.html#language. The following specific guidelines apply for the DAMS:

MARC 21 field	Mapping condition	MODS element	Notes
041$a	MARC subfield 041$2 is empty	<languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b" authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2">	Do not use values other than "iso639-2b" for authority.
041$b		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
041$d		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
041$e		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
041$f		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
041$g		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
041$h		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
041$j		N/A	Do not use the objectPart attribute.
546$b		N/A	Do not use the subelement scriptTerm.

Solr

In general, all MODS metadata is imported into the DAMS Solr server upon ingest. The ingest process generates Solr fields typically named according to the following schema:

mods_value*_suffix

where

value* can be one or multiple element, subelement or attribute names that allow to distinguish Solr fields
suffix is s, t, ss, ms or mt, which refers to the type of data stored in a Solr field and how it is indexed. The Solr index usually contains multiple copies of each field with the same content, distinguished by their suffix.

The following table shows mappings between MODS elements and Solr fields for those fields that are currently used for display in the Collections portal, or where additional processing happens in Islandora or during the publishing process. Suffixes are ignored, unless relevant for the mapping.

MODS element	Mapping condition	Solr DAMS	Solr Collections Portal	Notes
languageTerm		mods_language_languageTerm	display_language_ms	Publishing process strips languageTerm[@type="code"] values and validates textual language terms against list of language names.
languageTerm		mods_language_languageTerm	mods_language_languageTerm	Not used for display. Contains textual and code values.
languageTerm	only values of languageTerm[@type="text"]	mods_languageTerm_type_text	N/A
languageTerm	only values of languageTerm[@type="code"]	mods_languageTerm_type_code	N/A
languageTerm	only values of languageTerm[@type="text"]	dc.language	N/A