We should push to adopt a standard iconography for "language/region menu/options". A good candidate may be a world icon (which some companies already use, e.g.: dell.com).
Once there, given that the language list itself is in its own localization (or that iso codes are used to represent them, or both) you should be able to pick yours just fine.
I agree that flags aren't great, but I don't know of any other solution to this problem.