MAKELANGID

MAKELANGID is a macro used in the Windows API to construct a language identifier (LANGID) by combining a primary language ID with a sublanguage ID. It is defined in the Windows header WinNT.h and is commonly used when specifying the language or locale for Windows functions and applications.

Definition and bit layout

The macro expands to a bitwise operation that places the primary language ID into the upper bits and the sublanguage ID into the lower bits of a 16-bit LANGID. A typical form is: #define MAKELANGID(primary, sub) ((((USHORT)(primary)) << 10) | (USHORT)(sub)). In this scheme, the high bits encode the primary language, while the low bits encode the sublanguage. The resulting LANGID is a 16-bit value used by various Windows APIs to identify language and regional variation.

Usage

MAKELANGID is used wherever a LANGID is required, such as setting thread or process locale, formatting localized strings, or querying language-specific resources. It is common to combine predefined constants such as LANG_* (primary language identifiers) and SUBLANG_* (sublanguage identifiers) to form a specific language tag. Macros like PRIMARYLANGID and SUBLANGID can be used to extract the respective components from an existing LANGID.

Examples and context

A typical usage is MAKELANGID(LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US) to represent English as used in the United States. The macro is part of the broader Windows locale and language framework, which also includes LCIDs and related macros such as MAKELCID for constructing locale identifiers.

See also

Related concepts include LANGID, LCID, MAKELCID, PRIMARYLANGID, and SUBLANGID. MAKELANGID is a compile-time macro, not a function, and is specific to Windows development.