def normalize_locale(locale):
        """
        Normalize locale
        Extracts language code from passed in locale string to be used later
        for dictionaries loading.

        :param locale:          string, locale (en, en_US)
        :return:                string, language code
        """
        import re
        match = re.match(r'^[a-z]+', locale.lower())
        if match:
            return match.group()