The Movie Database Support
Support → General
A "Primary Language" field should really be added to the database
posted by endycjSTAFFMOD on February 23, 2025 at 9:56 PM
This was discussed here and there seemed to be wide agreement on this idea. The "original language" field is counterintuitive and not very helpful, and should be renamed to something like "production language" with a field like "primary language" added to describe the most prominent spoken language. This is causing some issues for services that use TMDb. Letterboxd references the "original language" field as "primary language," even though that's not what it really is. Cine2nerdle is having issues trying to determine the primary language from the API because there's no reliable way to tell as the "spoken language" field can be in a random order. A field that explicitly notes the primary language would be extremely helpful.
Reply by vanGoghTheHedgedog
on February 24, 2025 at 2:52 AM
It would also be nice to have some guidance on the order in which spoken languages should be listed. I've noticed whole back and forths on language order for some movies. Maybe the guidance exists somewhere but I couldn't find it!
Reply by Ruby
on February 24, 2025 at 4:24 PM
To address vanGoghTheHedgedog's point, I've noticed that the order of spoken languages appears changed in the change logs after editing something completely unrelated (not any language field) in the Primary Facts tab. So, many of the changes you mention might be not conscious (as in, they might have changed on their own when users edited something else, like the overview or runtime). I have often wondered about this, but never to the point of actually raising it.