Prevent biblatex from printing the language name and use language only for hyphenation

Question

In my .bib-file the language field is filled out in all entries.

As MWE, they all look (as expected) like:

@Collection{Bakker:Grammar,
  editor =   {Egbert J[an] Bakker},
  gender =   {sm},
  title =    {Grammar as Interpretation},
  subtitle = {Greek Literature in its Linguistic Context},
  shorttitle = {Grammar},
  language = {english},
  year =     1997,
  series =   {Mnemosyne. Supplementum},
  number =   171,
  publisher = {Brill},
  location ={Leiden AND New York AND K{\"o}ln}
  }

To print the bibliogeaphy I created this file

\documentclass[paper=a4,twoside,ngerman]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[LGR,T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\input{ix-utf8enc.dfu}
\usepackage{savesym}
\usepackage{gfsdidot,gfsporson}
\savesymbol{og}
\usepackage[main=ngerman,greek,italian,frenchb,english,british,german]{babel}
\usepackage[GlyphNames,boldLipsian]{teubner}
\savesymbol{breve}
\savesymbol{aa}
\usepackage[osf,sc]{mathpazo}
\restoresymbol{pplj}{breve}
\usepackage{courier}
\usepackage[scaled=.9]{DejaVuSansCondensed}
\Lipsiantrue
\ifFamily{pplj}{porson}
\usepackage{textcase}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{xpatch}
\usepackage[pdftex]{hyperref}
\usepackage[style=german, german=guillemets]{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=philosophy-modern, sortlocale=de_DE,
            sorting=nyvt, autolang=hyphen, alldates=terse,
            annotation=true, useprefix=true, language=ngerman,
             datezeros=false,  bibencoding=auto, pagetracker=spread,
             publocformat= loccolonpub, backend=biber, 
             citetracker = constrict, ibidtracker=constrict,
             opcittracker=constrict, idemtracker=constrict,
             relatedformat=parens,  clearlang=true]{biblatex}
\usepackage{moredefs}
\usepackage{lips}
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\usepackage[twothirds,nonegthinspace]{thinsp}
\usepackage[babel]{microtype}
\usepackage{fixltx2e}

After compiling it with biber --bblsafechars mybib and latex mybib.tex I get

Bakker, Egbert J[an]

1997 Hrsg., Grammar as Interpretation. Greek Literature in its Linguistic Context, Englisch, Mnemosyne. Supplementum 171, Leiden, New York und Köln: Brill.

But I don't want LaTeX to print the name of the language ("Englisch" in the example above) but to use it only for hyphenation, and though I've been trying everything I've been trying everything for several months, I only found ways either to put each entry in another otherlanguage-environment (by passing the option babel=other to biblatex) or suppress all infos about the language by putting all known languages in \DeclareRedundantLanguages{ngerman}{german,english,french,italian,british,franconian,vedic,malaysian ...}

Another idea was to change the language-field in the .bib-file to hyphenation, but I still got the name of the language in each entry.

Answer 1

You want biblatex's autolang=hyphen option (formerly known as babel=hyphen). One has to specify the hyphenation language via the langid (formerly [<= 2.7] hyphenation) field.

There is a way to automatically map the language field to the langid field. The following lines in the preamble should be enough to do that.

\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps{
    \map{
      \step[fieldsource=language, fieldset=langid, origfieldval, final]
      \step[fieldset=language, null]
    }
  }
}

This command will copy the language field into the langid field and will then delete the contents of the language field. The language field will only be deleted if it was successfully copied into the langid field.

The caveats in my comment above still apply: In the language field one can write german or even langlatin and langgerman, while the langid field should take proper babel/polyglossia language identifiers (and only one of those; "The identifier must be a language name known to the babel/polyglossia packages.", §2.2.3, p.24 of the biblatex documentation (v. 2.8)). In particular for entries in new German orthography language should of course be german while langid ought to be ngerman.

See this MWE

\documentclass[ngerman,english]{article}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[autolang=hyphen, backend=biber]{biblatex}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@Book{vangennep:trans,
  author       = {van Gennep, Arnold},
  title        = {The Rites of Passage},
  year         = 1960,
  translator   = {Vizedom, Monika B. and Caffee, Gabrielle L.},
  language     = {english},
  origlanguage = {french},
  publisher    = {University of Chicago Press},
}
@Book{cicero,
  author       = {Cicero, Marcus Tullius},
  title        = {De natura deorum. {\"U}ber das Wesen der G{\"o}tter},
  date         = 1995,
  editor       = {Blank-Sangmeister, Ursula},
  translator   = {Blank-Sangmeister, Ursula},
  afterword    = {Thraede, Klaus},
  language     = {langlatin and langgerman},
  publisher    = {Reclam},
  location     = {Stuttgart},
  hyphenation  = {german},
}
@book{testbook,
  author        = {Walter Ordsmith},
  title         = {The Work},
  subtitle      = {Subtitle},
  year          = {1983},
  publisher     = {P. Ublisher \& Co.},
  address       = {Townsville},
  language      = {german},
}
@article{testart1,
  author  = {Steven C. Ientist and Paula Rofessor},
  title   = {Thrilling, Intelligent and True Limes of Erudition},
  journal = {Journal of Articles},
  volume  = {20},
  number  = {3},
  year    = {1935},
  pages   = {1--46},
  language= {american},
}
@incollection{ordChap3,
  author     = {Walter Ordsmith and William Riter},
  title      = {A Chapter},
  booktitle  = {The Second Work},
  publisher  = {Academic Press},
  year       = {1977},
  language   = {french},
}

\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps{
    \map{
      \step[fieldsource=language, fieldset=langid, origfieldval, final]
      \step[fieldset=language, null]
    }
  }
}

\begin{document}
  \nocite{*}
  \printbibliography
\end{document}

yields