Windows System Locale settings for language and region



Please note: the "Abbreviated language name (3 characters)", above, corresponds to the ThreeLetterWindowsLanguageName variable (international sort) in the .NET CultureInfo Class. To learn more...


What are my system locale settings?


To get to this information panel, open the About box and then click on the letter L icon.

Let us start by defining "locale". Locale is a set of parameters that defines the user's language, region and any special variant preferences in the user's digital device interface (computer, smartphone, etc.). Locale is dependent on geographic location, language and cultural information.

From locale comes "localization" also known as "l10n", or the process of adapting a product or content (most of the times this refers to software or digital creations) to a specific locale or market, in which language translation is just one of the main components. 


It is advisable to keep in mind that localization is NOT "some sort of" translation. A very common misconception among some translators and LSPs. Translation is just one of the components of the technical localization process.


This Tb-Scout v3.3 feature extracts all of this locale information for you:


region code / ANSI code page / OEM code page / principal country/region / EBCDIC code page / language identifier / system of measurement / short date format string / long date format string / decimal separator / list item separator / time format string / English name of the language / international monetary symbol / country/region name (ISO 3166) / abbreviated language name (ISO 639) / abbreviated language name (3 characters) / localized language name / native language name / native country/region name / native currency name to locale.

It is all about international standards


These locale parameters follow international standards like the ISO 639-1 (two-letter codes for the representation of names of languages) and ISO 639-2 codes (three-letter codes for the representation of names of languages). Not only are these codes used internally in CAT tools, terminology systems like SDL MultiTerm and terminology databases or Termbases, for internal cohesion and consistency, but also that is how Language Service Providers (LSPs) and language service professionals offer and exchange their services.

In addition to these language names codes there are other standards like ISO 3166-1, two-letter country codes used not only to combine them with the language names codes mentioned but also used in the Internet's country code top-level domains (.us, .de, .it, etc.). 

The table below includes examples of some of these language codes and common usage ("language tags" in fourth column) in most CAT tools, when identifying particular variants or 'localized' variants of languages. In fact, this code combination is what CAT tools use. The normal and standard usage is lower case for the language code and all caps for country code.


ISO 639-1

ISO 639-2

Language name

ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1

ar

ara

Arabic

ar-DZ, ar-EG, ar-AE

zh

zho

Chinese

zh-CN, zh-TW, zh-HK

en

eng

English

en-UK, en-US, en-AU

fr

fra

French

fr-FR, fr-CA, fr-CH

de

deu

German

de-DE, de-AT, de-CH

pt

por

Portuguese

pt-PT, pt-BR, pt-AO

es

spa

Spanish

es-ES, es-AR, es-MX