Question

What would be the canonical attribute in an LDAP schema to encode the mother tongue (first language) of a user?

Interop with default/existing administration tools for Windows Active Directory would be a big plus.

Answer 1

The ‘preferredLanguage’ attribute of the inetOrgPerson (and AD’s user) object class is what you are after.

As far as I know this field is not exposed by the default Windows admin tools. You would need a lower-level tool such as adsiedit.msc.

2.7. Preferred Language

Used to indicate an individual’s
preferred written or spoken
language. This is useful for
international correspondence or human-
computer interaction. Values for this
attribute type MUST conform to the
definition of the Accept-Language
header field defined in [RFC2068]
with one exception: the sequence
“Accept-Language” “:” should be
omitted. This is a single valued
attribute type.

( 2.16.840.1.113730.3.1.39
  NAME 'preferredLanguage'
  DESC 'preferred written or spoken language for a person'
  EQUALITY caseIgnoreMatch
  SUBSTR caseIgnoreSubstringsMatch
  SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.15
  SINGLE-VALUE )
)