diff --git a/lib/linguist/language.rb b/lib/linguist/language.rb
index 35a6fd2e..f7286f01 100644
--- a/lib/linguist/language.rb
+++ b/lib/linguist/language.rb
@@ -43,6 +43,18 @@ module Linguist
       @lexer_index.to_a
     end
 
+    def self.lexer2name(lexer)
+      if language = find_by_lexer(lexer)
+        language.name
+      end
+    end
+
+    def self.name2lexer(name)
+      if language = find_by_name(name)
+        language.lexer
+      end
+    end
+
     def initialize(attributes = {})
       @name       = attributes[:name] || raise(ArgumentError, "missing name")
       @lexer      = attributes[:lexer] || default_lexer
diff --git a/test/test_language.rb b/test/test_language.rb
index c85bd972..9f6f1359 100644
--- a/test/test_language.rb
+++ b/test/test_language.rb
@@ -29,6 +29,18 @@ class TestLanguage < Test::Unit::TestCase
     assert_nil Language.find_by_lexer('kt')
   end
 
+  def test_lexer2name
+    assert_equal 'Ruby',   Language.lexer2name('ruby')
+    assert_equal 'Python', Language.lexer2name('python')
+    assert_nil Language.lexer2name('kt')
+  end
+
+  def test_name2lexer
+    assert_equal 'ruby',   Language.name2lexer('Ruby')
+    assert_equal 'python', Language.name2lexer('Python')
+    assert_nil Language.name2lexer('defunkt')
+  end
+
   def test_name
     assert_equal "Perl",   Language['Perl'].name
     assert_equal "Python", Language['Python'].name