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Flags Are Not Languages

flagsarenotlanguages.com

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Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#51

Post by bsza »

davedx wrote: post #6
James_K wrote: post #2

Counterpoint to this website: it is convenient to have symbols to represent things. I don't see them suggesting anything better than flags.

Only if the symbols make sense and there's a one-to-one relationship. This is a good move by Apple. Also, as a color blind person it is quite frustrating when people make content and use a flag emoji instead of a country name. Often mousing over doesn't work. Emojis are not semantic information.

> Only if the symbols make sense and there's a one-to-one relationship

A flag paired with a name, which the UI used to show, is as close to that as you can get. You can’t get exactly that because languages are not mathematical objects, they are organic, amorphous, ever-changing living things.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#52

Post by moltar »

I agree in principle. But the Apple example is a bad one. Because Apple was showing country specific language variations. E.g. English (Canada) had a Canadian flag. Which for Canadians would be easy to spot as everyone knows perfectly well the flag of their country and it’ll immediately jump out due to pattern recognition. Thus better outcomes for the end user. Thus better UX.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#53

Post by justsomehnguy »

jackvalentine wrote: post #24

I fairly often find myself deciding between flag of the United Kingdom or the flag of the United States of America as a choice for ‘English’ wondering will this just be different spelling or will there be some other ill effect of choosing the wrong one. I live in neither country, of course.

> will there be some other ill effect of choosing the wrong one

I recently tried to switch the locale of my work computer to en-GB, on a en-US distro and retaining the en-US keyboard layout.

The result is... unpleasant and some things (notably vSphere) just casually ignore both the user software settings (Firefox) and the OS settings.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#54

Post by ReleaseCandidat »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #28
ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we are talking about using flags of countries for languages, which is a totally different "kind of wrong".

I'm not sure it is. Symbols operate by analogy, all language does. The question isn't "where are you from", but "which country speaks a language that is similar to how you speak". If you're living in the UK and are given the choice between Denmark and Australia, the latter is the more similar.

> The question isn't "where are you from", but "which country speaks a language that is similar to how you speak"

Exactly. And that's the problem. There are countries where more than one language are officially spoken and differ (in the case of German enough that neither German nor Austrian German are usable, whereas German German is usable for Austrian German and vice versa) and these languages do not have their own flag - like Swiss German or Swiss Italian or Swiss French or do not have a flag in total, like (Swiss) Romansch. And no, Switzerland isn't the only "problematic" country and Romansch isn't the only language without a flag.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#55

Post by ncclporterror »

RobotToaster wrote: post #39
ncclporterror wrote: post #30

The website argues that using a flag for a language may confuse or even offend users. It argues English would most appropriately be represented by the flag of England, but few people know the flag of England, so English is usually represented by the flag of the UK or the US, neither of which are appropriate because other languages are spoken in the UK and English does not originate from the US. I would argue that usi…

English is the official language of the United Kingdom, so their argument doesn't make sense.

The website makes further arguments: English is the official language in many other countries, therefore choosing the UK is arbitrary.

You could define a complicated rule to make it less arbitrary, but then the choice of the rule itself would be arbitrary. I think the point that any mapping will be to some extent arbitrary is correct.

The problem for me is arguing that because any arbitrary convention will be offending or confusing to some, then no convention should be chosen. As opposed to the practical idea of just picking a convention that makes sense.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#56

Post by andrewshadura »

bsza wrote: post #38
JimDabell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the wrong symbol for something is worse than the inconvenience of not having a symbol.

It really isn’t. You presumably live in a country. That country has a flag. If you click that flag, there is a high chance you’ll get a language you understand - and if you don’t, you probably already know the reason and how to fix it (diaspora, multi-lingual country etc.). A few easy-to-address edge cases are no basis to fuck up everyone else’s experience.

I speak Russian, I don't live in Russia. Never have, never was a citizen of. Why the hell do I have to select the flag of Russia if I want to use something in Russian?

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#57

Post by dgan »

Tangential rant: Anything that tries to second-guess what user meant is doomed for failure in some (not even so obscure) cases

I prefer all my UI in English, because it's easier to navigate settings. But i also hate when google tries to be smart and (poorly) auto translates the reviews in Maps from one of the languages I fluently speak, to English. I didn't find any way to separate those settings.

Also, i believe, Libre Office tries to deduce the monetary units from OS settings, and forces me to changes dollars to euros.

Just ask me what i want!

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#58

Post by marginalia_nu »

ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #54
marginalia_nu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is. Symbols operate by analogy, all language does. The question isn't "where are you from", but "which country speaks a language that is similar to how you speak". If you're living in the UK and are given the choice between Denmark and Australia, the latter is the more similar.

> The question isn't "where are you from", but "which country speaks a language that is similar to how you speak" Exactly. And that's the problem. There are countries where more than one language are officially spoken and differ (in the case of German enough that neither German nor Austrian German are usable, whereas German German is usable for Austrian German and vice versa) and these languages do not have their own…

This is only an issue if the flag is the only information provided. In the case of the Swiss languages, you could use the Swiss flag for all for all of them, or only for the languages that are unique to Switzerland.

Words do not have to be unique in language. You can lead an army and you can lead water in a lead pipe.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#59

Post by bsza »

andrewshadura wrote: post #56
bsza wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn’t. You presumably live in a country. That country has a flag. If you click that flag, there is a high chance you’ll get a language you understand - and if you don’t, you probably already know the reason and how to fix it (diaspora, multi-lingual country etc.). A few easy-to-address edge cases are no basis to fuck up everyone else’s experience.

I speak Russian, I don't live in Russia. Never have, never was a citizen of. Why the hell do I have to select the flag of Russia if I want to use something in Russian?

See? You’ve already managed to figure out which flag to click despite your VERY exceptional situation.

This is great UI design.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#60

Post by jiehong »

I always thought they should be using the flag of the UN to indicate the location of a language selection dropdown, and just list the name of the languages in their native form in the list.

But being able to choose the language is always much better than sites forcing you to use a specific version of a site depending on your location, which is such a pain.

Side note: seeing the Taiwanese flag for traditional Chinese is kinda like the French flag in Switzerland for Hong Kong.

The French flag is a particular offender, with so many countries speaking French in Europe, Africa or Canada.

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