diff --git a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/LanguageRegistry.java b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/LanguageRegistry.java
index 6f1755b9be..bdd930cb3e 100644
--- a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/LanguageRegistry.java
+++ b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/LanguageRegistry.java
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ package net.sourceforge.pmd.lang;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Collection;
 import java.util.Iterator;
+import java.util.Collections;
+import java.util.Comparator;
 import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
@@ -21,19 +23,34 @@ public final class LanguageRegistry {
     private Map<String, Language> languages;
 
     private LanguageRegistry() {
-        languages = new LinkedHashMap<>();
+        List<Language> languagesList = new ArrayList<>();
         ServiceLoader<Language> languageLoader = ServiceLoader.load(Language.class);
         Iterator<Language> iterator = languageLoader.iterator();
         while (iterator.hasNext()) {
             try {
                 Language language = iterator.next();
-                languages.put(language.getName(), language);
+                languagesList.add(language);
             } catch (UnsupportedClassVersionError e) {
                 // Some languages require java8 and are therefore only available
                 // if java8 or later is used as runtime.
                 System.err.println("Ignoring language for PMD: " + e.toString());
             }
         }
+
+        // sort languages by terse name. Avoiding differences in the order of languages
+        // across JVM versions / OS.
+        Collections.sort(languagesList, new Comparator<Language>() {
+            @Override
+            public int compare(Language o1, Language o2) {
+                return o1.getTerseName().compareToIgnoreCase(o2.getTerseName());
+            }
+        });
+
+        // using a linked hash map to maintain insertion order
+        languages = new LinkedHashMap<>();
+        for (Language language : languagesList) {
+            languages.put(language.getName(), language);
+        }
     }
 
     public static LanguageRegistry getInstance() {
diff --git a/pmd-dist/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/it/BinaryDistributionIT.java b/pmd-dist/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/it/BinaryDistributionIT.java
index 992ede22e0..7544651537 100644
--- a/pmd-dist/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/it/BinaryDistributionIT.java
+++ b/pmd-dist/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/it/BinaryDistributionIT.java
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ public class BinaryDistributionIT {
             PMDExecutionResult result;
 
             result = PMDExecutor.runPMD(tempDir, "-h");
-            result.assertPMDExecutionResult(1, "apex, java, ecmascript, jsp, plsql, vm, xml, xsl, wsdl, pom");
+            result.assertPMDExecutionResult(1, "apex, ecmascript, java, jsp, plsql, pom, vm, wsdl, xml, xsl");
 
             result = PMDExecutor.runPMDRules(tempDir, srcDir, "java-basic");
             result.assertPMDExecutionResult(4, "JumbledIncrementer.java:8:");