Locale En 150

Reference data for the English (Europe) locale — endonym English (Europe), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: en-150
• ISO 639-1: en
• ISO 639-3: eng
• Script: Latn (Latin)
• Region: 150 (Europe)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 67,000,000
• L2 (additional): 213,000,000
• L1+L2 (total): 280,000,000

Base locale

This is a regional variant of Locale En 001 (English), the base/macro locale for this language.

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).

• one — i = 1 and v = 0 (e.g. 1)
• other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Apply Locale En 001 and use these conventions for English in Europe. Most readers are non-native speakers, so clarity matters more than idiom.

• Spelling: British forms (-ise, -our, -re); the Oxford style uses -ize with -our.
• Dates and numbers: day/month/year, 24-hour clock, euro (€) where the euro is used; check CLDR en-150 data before hard-coding separators.
• Plain English: the European Commission publishes an English Style Guide for authors and translators; avoid idioms and phrasal verbs where a precise verb exists.
• Terminology: follow EU terminology (IATE, https://iate.europa.eu) for institutional terms.

Common pitfalls

• Using idioms that non-native readers will not decode.
• Using US dates and spellings in a European context.
• The general pitfalls in Locale En 001 also apply.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Microsoft Writing Style Guide (https://learn.microsoft.com/style-guide/welcome/)
• European Commission English Style Guide