Read Language File "In Reverse"?

To access language items within a language file, we can do:

$this->EE->lang->loadfile('file_name');

$this->EE->lang->line('item_short_name');

Is there a best-practice way to reverse the second item, something like:

$this->EE->lang->line('Long Name');

so that I can get the short name for a language item from the long name. I know I could read the file with php and parse it, but I as wondering if there is an EE-native way to do it.