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Flags Are Not Languages

flagsarenotlanguages.com

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Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#141

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.

Yeah, English is not my first language, and I often pick it to avoid ill-effects of choosing the wrong language. Then there's the guess between stuff that looks like "English", "English (International)", "English (US)", and "English (UK)". (There's also some abbreviation for British that may vary, it's often "Br".)

Anyway the flags don't necessarily make it any more confusing.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#142

Still a lot of websites (including Google) ignore "Accept-Language" header, and show language based on my geolocated IP address. Dude, if I'm visiting Netherlands it doesn't mean I speak Dutch. At least I can guess some words cause it's Latin alphabet. But when I visited Georgia I had no idea what მიღება even sounds like.

Even worse: Google Translate doesn't appear to have text-to-speech for Georgian.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know which of 语言设定 and 重置设备 will allow me to set the language back to English. That's why the languages should be presented in their "own" native form (name and alphabet), at least additionally. Which - using the native form and the translation in the current active locale - Apple does, btw., so at least on MacOS your problem does not exist.

The should be presented mainly, mostly and primarily in their native form. The form for currently set language should be additional. It's a no-brainer which makes demand for using flags unnecessary, almost making it absurd to use them. But, wait. 语言设定 is "Language settings" and 重置设备 is "Reset device". So the problem here is a bit different, right?

> 语言设定 is "Language settings" and 重置设备 is "Reset device".

That's the weird part. Obviously, either one will set the language back to English.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#144
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don’t know Chinese so I don’t know that is an arbitrary Chinese character with the Latin A for contrast. I’ve seen languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet occasionally intersperse Latin letters before so until I was told just now I assumed that this Chinese character with A had some significance in Chinese. So I don’t think it’s very effective at that.

Really? When I first saw it I understood it must have to do with changing languages.

Visiting the Netherlands right now and every time I visit local.google.com, it reverts back to Dutch. I had no idea what the symbol on its own and only figured it out when searching how to get things back to English and seeing the symbol used in that specific context.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#145
post #60

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…

How do they call the language they speak? French? You know where the language originates and why is it called French? I kinda understand some of the arguments and sensitivities and some examples on the website are dumb but it's also dumb to deny that French language can't be associated with France. I bet people in Quebec and Niger can make the connection when they open the dropdown that this will be the language they…

> You know where the language originates and why is it called French?

Yes, it originates in Italy, and it's named after a group that once occupied part of the area where France is now. They spoke Frankish, a language unrelated to French.

Interestingly, in Asia, the French are often referred to as "Franks", or rather by an interpretation of the word "Frank" in the sound system of the local language as it existed a few centuries ago.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#146

Still a lot of websites (including Google) ignore "Accept-Language" header, and show language based on my geolocated IP address. Dude, if I'm visiting Netherlands it doesn't mean I speak Dutch. At least I can guess some words cause it's Latin alphabet. But when I visited Georgia I had no idea what მიღება even sounds like.

[deleted]

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This is only an issue if the flag is the only information provided. The next step is acknowledging that the flag doesn't contribute anything, but may cause confusion or negative associations with the flag's country. So what exactly is the point of using it at all?

The problem is that a list of languages has no alphabetical order because different languages use different scripts and there is no standard order of scripts (yes there is Unicode, no relying on your users knowing the order of scripts in Unicode is not good UI design). So there is no way to order a list of languages so that someone can binary search them like they would a dictionary.

Which comes first: Ελληνικά, العربية, Русский, or 日本語?

Flags assist by giving a second piece of information that can be used to identify the right language easier. They still perform this function even if the wrong flag is used. You can scan a list of flags with names faster than you can scan a list of weird unfamiliar language names.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Some flag, US, Chinese, I don’t care, signifies “language” in the context of software . That is an easy, universal UI pattern. I don’t see the need to upend this for some notion of offense or other type of PCness.

> some notion of offense or other type of PCness As just one example of what we're talking about, let's take Ireland: after generations of cultural oppression England caused a famine in Ireland that reduced the population by at least 20% between millions of deaths and millions of immigrants. Ireland still hasn't recovered its population to the pre-famine levels. The Irish are literally still recovering from their abu…

It's possible to just do "English" but sites are typically going to either do British English or US English. Not putting the British flag to avoid offense is just hiding the fact that you're localizing to British English to try and avoid offense. (Which doesn't actually seem better to me.) Unless you actually do separately localize to Irish English. But also why not just provide the same text under two flags?

Also, on the other hand, China may get very cross with you if you refer to Taiwanese Chinese at all. How you refer to a language is inherently political, and hiding the flag changes the political statement you're making, but it doesn't eliminate it, nor does making a consistent decision like "no flag" mean you're going to consistently side with oppressor or oppressed.

This is all "types of PCness" and I don't say that to dismiss it or say that I would never do something for the sake of PCness, but mostly to say that throwing out flags seems like a cop-out and not addressing the problems on a case-by-case basis.

The bigger problems are probably countries with indigenous native languages that only exist in that country but are also a minority... many Latin American countries where you might put Spanish with that country's flag but there is Nahuatl or Quechua or whatever. But on the other hand realistically you are only localizing to Spanish, so again, you're just trying to pretend like you've made a neutral political choice by hiding the flag.

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#149

Still a lot of websites (including Google) ignore "Accept-Language" header, and show language based on my geolocated IP address. Dude, if I'm visiting Netherlands it doesn't mean I speak Dutch. At least I can guess some words cause it's Latin alphabet. But when I visited Georgia I had no idea what მიღება even sounds like.

That's really the core of the issue. Language switching is such a common thing that it should be part of Web infrastructure itself, not the individual Website, and it sort of is. But most Websites ignore those preferences and browsers have those settings hidden so deep away that no user will even be aware of them. Having a little icon in your browser, not the Website, to switch language would make this issue largely…

Great idea! I guess though you'd need a new header for a website to declare what languages a page is available in, so the menu options in the browser would only show languages that are actually available? Or a new meta tag? Or maybe there is one already?

Re: Flags Are Not Languages

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Some flag, US, Chinese, I don’t care, signifies “language” in the context of software . That is an easy, universal UI pattern. I don’t see the need to upend this for some notion of offense or other type of PCness.

> some notion of offense or other type of PCness As just one example of what we're talking about, let's take Ireland: after generations of cultural oppression England caused a famine in Ireland that reduced the population by at least 20% between millions of deaths and millions of immigrants. Ireland still hasn't recovered its population to the pre-famine levels. The Irish are literally still recovering from their abu…

At some point you just have to own the fact that you are who you are because of your history. An Irish dialect of English is still English and it still has that connection to the past, flag or no flag.
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