Flags Are Not Languages(flagsarenotlanguages.com)
flagsarenotlanguages.com
Flags Are Not Languages
https://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/
199 comments
But the flag was useful to show in the ui where the language setting was. This is especially useful when the language has been set to something I cannot read. 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. Also flags in the menu means that I can find English easier than 英语
Wikipedia uses a “文Ａ” icon; IMHO far better than a flag. What flag would you expect to see?
As for finding the language in the menu, listening a language in the foreign language seems like bad design too. The menu should list “English” as an option!
See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#/languages
As for finding the language in the menu, listening a language in the foreign language seems like bad design too. The menu should list “English” as an option!
See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#/languages
I personally had no idea that icon let you change the language of articles (a concept I explicitly looked for before).
Still confused at what the icon is actually supposed to mean.
Wikipedia's UI has perhaps been over-optimized over time, by people already too familiar with said UI, and so has lost the natural context cues for learnability. (Similar to what happened to modern smartphone UIs re: secondary-interaction gestures.)
Here's how the same chooser looks on Wiktionary — which is also how it used to look on Wikipedia, back when Wikipedia used the full default MediaWiki sidebar: https://oshi.at/HhVH/zhWZ.png
You've got a subsection header "In other languages"; and under it, a list of links titled with the names of languages. (This reads as: these are a set of popular suggested alternative language views of this page, and clicking these links will take you directly to the page in those languages.) And at the end of this list, aligned as the final list item, there's a button with a weird icon with the text "51 more" on it. (And this reads as: clicking here will expand some flyout menu or modal, which will allow you to see you the rest of the list of language options, and perhaps search within them.)
In that context, you don't really have to understand the meaning of the icon to know what to do; rather, the interaction of changing language is directed by the rest of the design, and going through it teaches you the meaning of the icon. Which allows you to later understand its use elsewhere in the site's design.
Here's how the same chooser looks on Wiktionary — which is also how it used to look on Wikipedia, back when Wikipedia used the full default MediaWiki sidebar: https://oshi.at/HhVH/zhWZ.png
You've got a subsection header "In other languages"; and under it, a list of links titled with the names of languages. (This reads as: these are a set of popular suggested alternative language views of this page, and clicking these links will take you directly to the page in those languages.) And at the end of this list, aligned as the final list item, there's a button with a weird icon with the text "51 more" on it. (And this reads as: clicking here will expand some flyout menu or modal, which will allow you to see you the rest of the list of language options, and perhaps search within them.)
In that context, you don't really have to understand the meaning of the icon to know what to do; rather, the interaction of changing language is directed by the rest of the design, and going through it teaches you the meaning of the icon. Which allows you to later understand its use elsewhere in the site's design.
The popular reason is likely because 文 is used across East Asia in Chinese and Japanese (Korean and Vietnamese too, though written differently)[0], with the ideograph standing in as a sufficiently different contrast to the Latin alphabet, and as a reference to a major non-latin-alphabet based user market, while being simple enough to render (compared to something more "difficult"[1] like 语/語)
It's also been used in the Google Translate logo as well.
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[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%96%87
[1] Not only because of Simplified/Traditional/Japanese renderings (文 is mostly the same across all three), but more strokes for a small icon is a bad idea regardless
It's also been used in the Google Translate logo as well.
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[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%96%87
[1] Not only because of Simplified/Traditional/Japanese renderings (文 is mostly the same across all three), but more strokes for a small icon is a bad idea regardless
It’s a Chinese character and a Latin letter. The idea, presumably, being that of ‘multiple languages’.
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.
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.
Never struck me that way, though I can see it in retrospect. On the other hand, if I see a flag, I know that’s language settings.
In don’t know that using flags for language settings is more semantic, but it’s convention so I know what it means.
I’ve seen flags used to indicate language settings for as long as I’ve been using computers.
In don’t know that using flags for language settings is more semantic, but it’s convention so I know what it means.
I’ve seen flags used to indicate language settings for as long as I’ve been using computers.
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.
I thought it was a weird logo or something, no idea it was even a button.
I recall thinking it was a compass before. They should've chosen a more complicated Chinese character if that is what they wanted to portray.
* Use 文Ａ, and ensure you can navigate to the menu only via symbols
* The first element should be "use default/system language"
* Language names should be displayed untranslated: "Deutsch, English, français"
* Optionally display the language in the currently selected language
* The first element should be "use default/system language"
* Language names should be displayed untranslated: "Deutsch, English, français"
* Optionally display the language in the currently selected language
> Wikipedia uses a “文Ａ” icon; IMHO far better than a flag.
It's not exactly suggestive of a language selector. 文 means "text". "A" doesn't mean anything at all.
It's not exactly suggestive of a language selector. 文 means "text". "A" doesn't mean anything at all.
The 文 also appears in the Google Translate icon on iOS [0], which is why I always attributed it to a machine translation, not a version of the article written in another language by a human.
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-translate/id414706506
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-translate/id414706506
Salesforce translates (or did when I last used it) all the language and time zone options. If you switched to Japanese by accident, switching back was a bit of a challenge.
I have also seen this icon on google translate, used to denote text. I wonder who came up with it first. Any time I've seen it, I have immediately guessed what it meant.
The flag representing the currently active language, typically.
Both versions is the correct answer, like in the screenshot in the article.
Yes! I meant to write “only” in the foreign language. Good catch.
this is one of the most horrible design. there's at least 10 times where I had to look more than once to actually find this button
> 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.
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?
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?
> So the problem here is a bit different, right?
I wonder if flags fix that one in any way.
It's the convention on sites to put the flags as a top-level element (but you could put "English" there just as easily). But on any device with a menu, the flags are usually only on the language list.
I wonder if flags fix that one in any way.
It's the convention on sites to put the flags as a top-level element (but you could put "English" there just as easily). But on any device with a menu, the flags are usually only on the language list.
> but you could put "English" there just as easily
I've seen a website where the URL made it clear that the selected language was "en-US", but the flag displayed was the United Kingdom.
I've seen a website where the URL made it clear that the selected language was "en-US", but the flag displayed was the United Kingdom.
Exactly, that's also how Apple (I'm starting to feel bad to constantly mention them) does it, the native form is "normal font face", the translated one is in lighter grey.
The problem being posed by 'peterhi is not identifying a particular language in a language selection list. The problem is finding your way over to that language selection list in the first place when presented with a UI in a language you can't read. Imagine you land on a website with the language set to (say) Esperanto, how do you navigate through that to change the language to (say) English?
> 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.
That's the weird part. Obviously, either one will set the language back to English.
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.
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 abuse at the hands of England. They speak English because England made it so through generations of deliberate cultural extermination. It's unreasonable for you to dismiss their desire to not identify themselves with the British flag as some "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 abuse at the hands of England. They speak English because England made it so through generations of deliberate cultural extermination. It's unreasonable for you to dismiss their desire to not identify themselves with the British flag as some "type of PCness".
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.
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.
Well, good sir, you actually got through my thick skull. I have a soft spot for the Irish. I understand.
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.
More importantly, Ireland speaks two languages, English and Irish. The Irish flag should probably be Irish language since English has other representations. But it isn't obvious.
Hmm, there are counter example Japanese flag on white background would signify nothing...
That’s a design issue and a small and easily fixable one at that.
A commonly used icon or symbol for language selection seems to be the globe symbol (U+1F310). HN seems to filter it away, though, so cannot use it in this comment.
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.
Learning many writing systems is my hobby.
But despite having learned the Georgian alphabet and being able to read მიღება as "migheba" I still am none the wiser since I have no idea what that means.
Today my kid bought a pokemon toy and the box was only in Japanese. I proudly deciphered ニャスパー as "nyas'paa" but my son only recognized the name when I googled it and found the English spelling "nyasper" (we're not native English speakers so perhaps the translation would have been more obvious to some of you).
Long story short: knowing writing systems is super fun but often you need to know more about the actual language. That's especially true with languages like Arabic that don't spell out all the vowels
But despite having learned the Georgian alphabet and being able to read მიღება as "migheba" I still am none the wiser since I have no idea what that means.
Today my kid bought a pokemon toy and the box was only in Japanese. I proudly deciphered ニャスパー as "nyas'paa" but my son only recognized the name when I googled it and found the English spelling "nyasper" (we're not native English speakers so perhaps the translation would have been more obvious to some of you).
Long story short: knowing writing systems is super fun but often you need to know more about the actual language. That's especially true with languages like Arabic that don't spell out all the vowels
There's a joke in here with the pokemon's name with how it doesn't match with its actual english name
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 go away. What symbol you use in the end doesn't really matter, the issue is that every site does it a little differently.
Having a little icon in your browser, not the Website, to switch language would make this issue largely go away. What symbol you use in the end doesn't really matter, the issue is that every site does it a little differently.
Hidden deeply in browser settings because the browser should inherit the locale from your OS, right?
Absolutely not. I don't want the same language on all apps and the one I have on apps is not necessary the one I want on your site.
That’s exactly what I would want. My phone is set to a certain locale and language. By default I would want my apps to appear in that language, and websites. I may want to set a particular website to another language, and I’d appreciate a setting in the site that does it, but it should respect my default first. Up a level, if I want all websites in a different language than my OS, I’d go digging for a setting in the browser. But by default, the entire stack should respect the setting I configured at the top.
I'm bilingual, I prefer apps and websites to be in their original language of if it's one of the languages I speak, because that gets me the best experience.
There's nothing worse than apps that are badly translated with no easy way to switch them to English just because they decided that they should use the OS language.
There's nothing worse than apps that are badly translated with no easy way to switch them to English just because they decided that they should use the OS language.
Same thing (trilingual), but haven't seen such a poorly translated website to be nothing worse. Translated websites, even if poorly, are better than a language I don't speak.
Typically website translations are pretty good, when they already invested resources into translations.
Typically website translations are pretty good, when they already invested resources into translations.
The setting I have on the top has nothing to do with anything on some website. With website, I want it in original language, whatever it is, especially if I know the language at least a little.
With apps, I want to pick the translation per app, again what I have set into windows has nothing to do with what I want in app.
Me setting a windows language should not cascade to any webpage. And I never ever want the automatic AI translation.
With apps, I want to pick the translation per app, again what I have set into windows has nothing to do with what I want in app.
Me setting a windows language should not cascade to any webpage. And I never ever want the automatic AI translation.
That’s quite a rabbit hole, but I agree. I wouldn’t want things to start being machine translated to match my OS locale. But I would prefer maps.google.com not to default to Georgian just because I get IP geolocated there. It should give preference to my OS config.
I’m saying this as someone who’s bilingual and lives in a foreign country. I usually want things in my mother tongue, but I’d prefer the original language to some crappy translation.
I’m saying this as someone who’s bilingual and lives in a foreign country. I usually want things in my mother tongue, but I’d prefer the original language to some crappy translation.
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?
And in such cases, having a flag as a language switcher is a godsend.
Of course, with google, you are likely logged in with an account and they should know better, but most other websites you visit, you are not, so they give you the version local to where you are, as that’s usually more correct than not.
Now where is that flag …
Of course, with google, you are likely logged in with an account and they should know better, but most other websites you visit, you are not, so they give you the version local to where you are, as that’s usually more correct than not.
Now where is that flag …
Also, the Accept-Language header supports multiple languages. I want to read everything I can in the original, rather then having everything translated, but even websites that use the language header often only consider the first entry.
> I want to read everything I can in the original, rather then having everything translated, but even websites that use the language header often only consider the first entry.
Unfortunately that's not solvable with the current system which only allows listing a preferred order of languages and that's that. Like if I'd list English first, I risk getting English content even on pages originally written in my native language, if I put my native language first, then e.g. MSDN puts up so so-quality machine translations instead of the original English.
In theory you'd have to differentiate between at least native text, high quality translations and low quality translations. Now good luck creating an UI for that and also good luck for getting publishers to classify their websites and its contents according to such a scheme…
Unfortunately that's not solvable with the current system which only allows listing a preferred order of languages and that's that. Like if I'd list English first, I risk getting English content even on pages originally written in my native language, if I put my native language first, then e.g. MSDN puts up so so-quality machine translations instead of the original English.
In theory you'd have to differentiate between at least native text, high quality translations and low quality translations. Now good luck creating an UI for that and also good luck for getting publishers to classify their websites and its contents according to such a scheme…
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Even worse: Google Translate doesn't appear to have text-to-speech for Georgian.
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.
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.
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.
:be_flag_emoji: Belgian Dutch
:nl_flag_emoji: Dutch Dutch
This doesn't make sense. The language is the same in each country, it uses the same official rules and grammar. Pairing languages with countries is just incorrect.
:nl_flag_emoji: Dutch Dutch
This doesn't make sense. The language is the same in each country, it uses the same official rules and grammar. Pairing languages with countries is just incorrect.
Pairing languages with anything is incorrect, because “language” is an ill-defined term, an attempt to loosely group together similar methods of communication. But not having a flag is even more incorrect, because then all you have is a list of words, and the meaning of a word depends on the... language!
> The language is the same in each country
Then you can select either. I don’t see how this detracts from the usability of the UI.
> The language is the same in each country
Then you can select either. I don’t see how this detracts from the usability of the UI.
Every unicode emoji has an offical short description. As far as I know screenreaders handle them by reading that description. Mouse over to show that description in a tooltip sounds like a useful accessibilty feature. Does any browser or OS have that feature?
I'll often paste flag emoji into the unicode program ( https://github.com/garabik/unicode ) to get the country code letters for flags I don't recognise.
It's pretty bad when people pick the wrong flag, because they don't know unicode, and are just looking at a tiny image on their phone screen.
It's pretty bad when people pick the wrong flag, because they don't know unicode, and are just looking at a tiny image on their phone screen.
I think that browsers should show a little popup with the name of every emoji. It
would be the alt text. I'm old and don't know what many of the emoji mean. Names wouldn't help with slang usage (see eggplant) but they would with the confusing ones and flags.
Right - a disk means save, and often it's downhill from there for many symbols in a new UI - various paint programs come to mind.
I'm not from the UK but if I'm on a non-English site it's super obvious that a UK flag is likely to take me to English. If there's a clearer way, sure, but a lot of this seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, as an excuse to remind everyone that flags aren't languages which I don't think anybody was ever implying.
I'm not from the UK but if I'm on a non-English site it's super obvious that a UK flag is likely to take me to English. If there's a clearer way, sure, but a lot of this seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, as an excuse to remind everyone that flags aren't languages which I don't think anybody was ever implying.
People have proposed "language flags" before.
In fact, Wikipedia even uses/maintains a set of them for Wiktionary entries (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Language_flags_lis...) — although I've never personally noticed them in use in Wiktionary. (Does anyone have an example of a Wiktionary page that embeds one of these?)
In fact, Wikipedia even uses/maintains a set of them for Wiktionary entries (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Language_flags_lis...) — although I've never personally noticed them in use in Wiktionary. (Does anyone have an example of a Wiktionary page that embeds one of these?)
It seems like these flags don’t uniquely represent specific languages. Look at how many languages have the flag of India.
I like this concept, but worry that the space afforded in common UI (e.g. 16px tray/menubar icons) isn’t sufficient to display the added detail.
Perhaps “language symbols”, which take the idea of language flags and simplifies them into colored glyphs that render nicely at small sizes could be a solution.
Perhaps “language symbols”, which take the idea of language flags and simplifies them into colored glyphs that render nicely at small sizes could be a solution.
Plus it is funny when the British have to pick the American flag to select the language that we stole from them.
OTOH, this “which country best represents the language” question can provide unhappy geopolitical reminders to people, so I think we should not do it.
OTOH, this “which country best represents the language” question can provide unhappy geopolitical reminders to people, so I think we should not do it.
The world emoji or just a grid-sphere symbol are the closest I've seen to hit the mark where flags aren't visible.
Same with the "cog" for settings. I always know where settings are even on my chinese co-worker's phone.
Same with the "cog" for settings. I always know where settings are even on my chinese co-worker's phone.
Having the wrong symbol for something is worse than the inconvenience of not having a symbol.
Not necessarily. It completely depends on the situation.
As another example: gendered bathrooms. The icons used on gendered bathrooms have a woman wearing a skirt, and a man wearing trousers. These icons are "wrong": a man can wear a skirt, and a woman can wear trousers (in fact, nowadays most women do). It's nonetheless certainly more useful to have a "wrong" icon than none at all in this case.
As another example: gendered bathrooms. The icons used on gendered bathrooms have a woman wearing a skirt, and a man wearing trousers. These icons are "wrong": a man can wear a skirt, and a woman can wear trousers (in fact, nowadays most women do). It's nonetheless certainly more useful to have a "wrong" icon than none at all in this case.
Bathrooms need icons because they have to assume users who can't read, or don't know the local language. None of these two problems apply to language selection 99.9999% of the time: if you can't read, you can't use a system based on reading no matter the language, and if you don't recognize the name of a language in a list, you also do not want to select it.
Quite obviously you never interacted with any software which defaults to the language you can't read, despite having a support for the language you do understand.
How would flags in the language selection help? The actual problem is finding the language selection at all (which still has an icon of a (stylised) globe on MacOS).
Language select used to have a flag of current language. Political correctness might have made companies change that convention making it hard to find as you say, but it used to be that you looked for flags to find the language setting.
I remember windows having flags for the languages, but now it is a strange A symbol that I have no clue what it is and I'd have no chance of finding if it was in the wrong language.
I remember windows having flags for the languages, but now it is a strange A symbol that I have no clue what it is and I'd have no chance of finding if it was in the wrong language.
> if you don't recognize the name of a language in a list, you also do not want to select it
So, if you saw any of these languages in a list, you wouldn't select them?
英语
영어
อังกฤษ
So, if you saw any of these languages in a list, you wouldn't select them?
英语
영어
อังกฤษ
Wrong symbols are everywhere. Ever seen a save button with a floppy disk icon? Its not about pedantic accuracy -- if something works, do not touch it.
I wouldn't personally think of that as a "wrong symbol" though – it's just an anachronistic representation used to establish a visual representation of an abstract concept.
I'd be concerned if I saw a save button with a printer icon on it though – they're both recognisably computer peripherals but they're definitely not interchangeable!
I'd be concerned if I saw a save button with a printer icon on it though – they're both recognisably computer peripherals but they're definitely not interchangeable!
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". 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.
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.
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.
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 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?
It does contribute something though.
One very useful property of flags is that the flag is the same in any language, even if the names for the languages are not.
Having a colorful icon is also helpful if you have problems reading text. Means you don't have to read all the languages' names that are on screen, you can do a coarse visual match by colors and then confirm by only reading the one name.
Modern low contrast monochrome flat UIs are a nightmare for people with reading disabilities and low-grade sight impairment. Speaking from my own experience. A dab of color does so much to help parse a UI. It doesn't have to be the perfect representation or unambiguous. Just give me something to help navigate the UI that isn't just monochrome text possibly with monochrome line-art icons.
One very useful property of flags is that the flag is the same in any language, even if the names for the languages are not.
Having a colorful icon is also helpful if you have problems reading text. Means you don't have to read all the languages' names that are on screen, you can do a coarse visual match by colors and then confirm by only reading the one name.
Modern low contrast monochrome flat UIs are a nightmare for people with reading disabilities and low-grade sight impairment. Speaking from my own experience. A dab of color does so much to help parse a UI. It doesn't have to be the perfect representation or unambiguous. Just give me something to help navigate the UI that isn't just monochrome text possibly with monochrome line-art icons.
Oh, yes, that's why I wrote that the language must be written in the native language and additionally contain the translated name. And _every_ long list of text should be searchable (for the native and the translated name).
Which Apple's version does.
Which Apple's version does.
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.
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.
You seem to be approaching this backwards.
Swiss German is German. It gets a German flag. Swiss French is French. It gets a French flag.
As a Brit you get used to American flags to denote English. It's just not a big deal. I mean I even use US English most of the time as I prefer the keyboard layout.
Barely any languages exist in the world without an associated country. You're looking for a problem where none exists. Romansh has like 50,000 speakers and a ton of those probably use something different on their computers anyway. But even there the clear and obvious choice is the Swiss flag.
Back in my day we all had to use ASCII, etc etc.
Swiss German is German. It gets a German flag. Swiss French is French. It gets a French flag.
As a Brit you get used to American flags to denote English. It's just not a big deal. I mean I even use US English most of the time as I prefer the keyboard layout.
Barely any languages exist in the world without an associated country. You're looking for a problem where none exists. Romansh has like 50,000 speakers and a ton of those probably use something different on their computers anyway. But even there the clear and obvious choice is the Swiss flag.
Back in my day we all had to use ASCII, etc etc.
This is an unbelievably ignorant comment. As someone else pointed out, Swiss German is not the same as German and there are many (widely spoken) languages that are spoken in many different countries as there are many countries where many different languages are spoken.
The entire point of TFA is that there isn’t a simple mapping between flags of countries and languages so we should probably stop trying to create one.
> Back in my day we all had to use ASCII, etc etc.
And it turned out that this assumption was a bad one hence the need for Unicode. Why make the same mistake again?
The entire point of TFA is that there isn’t a simple mapping between flags of countries and languages so we should probably stop trying to create one.
> Back in my day we all had to use ASCII, etc etc.
And it turned out that this assumption was a bad one hence the need for Unicode. Why make the same mistake again?
Swiss German is not German. It is a language kinda similar to German. Bit, if you studied German and can get by in Germany, you will still be clueless in Switzerland
And if you are a Russian-speaking Ukrainian who has to pick the Russian flag? Or an Irish person who has to pick the Union Flag? Not even the English flag, because nobody actually uses that for the English language, but the Union Flag!
This isn’t an abstract technicality, forcing people to use the wrong flag can trigger some very strong negative emotions if you get it wrong.
This isn’t an abstract technicality, forcing people to use the wrong flag can trigger some very strong negative emotions if you get it wrong.
The only time the Ukrainian would have to pick the Russian flag would surely be if they selected the Russian language, and not the Ukrainian language which is not the same as Russian and doesn't even use the same alphabet. The languages and alphabets are undeniably similar and somewhat mutually intelligible, but they are not the same.
Only time this is a problem is when the Ukrainian localization isn't even supported and the Ukrainians are forced to use Russian, but then isn't that the bigger problem?
Only time this is a problem is when the Ukrainian localization isn't even supported and the Ukrainians are forced to use Russian, but then isn't that the bigger problem?
I know Ukrainian and Russian are different languages, that’s why I specified “a Russian-speaking Ukrainian”. Plenty of Ukrainians are native Russian speakers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ukraine
Speaking a language natively is not the same thing as nationality or allegiance to a flag, and it can be grossly offensive to confuse the two.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ukraine
Speaking a language natively is not the same thing as nationality or allegiance to a flag, and it can be grossly offensive to confuse the two.
If you're a Russian speaking Ukrainian, you're speaking like the Russians, which is the sort of analogy I'm referring to.
Ukraine has significant population that speaks Russian and consider themselves Ukrainians.
While the Russian-speaking Ukrainians would indeed speak "like the Russians", I'd at least go off the limb and say that they'd probably prefer to have their native language in the UI represented as something like "Русский" instead of the Russian flag. Like if we were to ask a randomly picked Russian speaking Ukrainian like, say, Volodymyr Zelenskyy about how he'd feel about his native language being represented by the Russian flag, I could imagine him being sort of annoyed by that even if he'd probably understand the reason behind the choice.
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I feel that like many other people I'm this thread, it'd probably be better to have the language be represented as itself in the "Select language"-menu instead of relying on flags. It would be more accessible, allow for choosing different dialects of the same language, avoid faux pas like the aforementioned thing with Russian-speaking Ukrainiand, and so on. Of course you'd also want a translated name of the language in the UI which would correspond to the current UI language, but having the language there in its native form is a must.
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I feel that like many other people I'm this thread, it'd probably be better to have the language be represented as itself in the "Select language"-menu instead of relying on flags. It would be more accessible, allow for choosing different dialects of the same language, avoid faux pas like the aforementioned thing with Russian-speaking Ukrainiand, and so on. Of course you'd also want a translated name of the language in the UI which would correspond to the current UI language, but having the language there in its native form is a must.
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?
Because it is a convenient universally understood symbol. Why does the letter W have the shape it has? I don’t care, but I know what it stands for as do all other people who speak English.
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See? You’ve already managed to figure out which flag to click despite your VERY exceptional situation.
This is great UI design.
This is great UI design.
It’s not an exceptional situation. This is quite commonplace, even in the English-speaking world.
The largest diaspora in the world (India’s) has 30 million people, and most of them (18M) are immigrants. I have trouble believing more than 1% of people worldwide would prefer something other than one of the national languages of the country in which they were raised.
But my point is more like, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Your frustration with the Russian flag is justified, but so is the frustration of everyone else having to read through dozens of entries, possibly in a foreign language.
But my point is more like, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Your frustration with the Russian flag is justified, but so is the frustration of everyone else having to read through dozens of entries, possibly in a foreign language.
I live in Switzerland and I’m very used to seeing 3 to five options with a Swiss flag: German, French, Italian, English, Romansh (rarely). I don’t see it as a wrong use of the flag.
One is the locale and the other is the language. The flag serves as a lookup index.
One is the locale and the other is the language. The flag serves as a lookup index.
"Wrong symbol"?! For the most part nobody cares
Now, sure, in some cases, like the Gatwick example in the site, that is wrong/questionable.
> There are some curious flag choices made for representing languages: such as Andorra for Catalan. With a population of around 80,000, there are are fewer people in Andorra than the seating capacity of Catalonia’s largest football ground, FC Barcelona’s Nou Camp (almost 100,000 people).
But flags can be a good help for people with some linguistic/reading difficulties (besides the issues when you need to find the 'switch language' option in an unknown (to you) language.
Now, sure, in some cases, like the Gatwick example in the site, that is wrong/questionable.
> There are some curious flag choices made for representing languages: such as Andorra for Catalan. With a population of around 80,000, there are are fewer people in Andorra than the seating capacity of Catalonia’s largest football ground, FC Barcelona’s Nou Camp (almost 100,000 people).
But flags can be a good help for people with some linguistic/reading difficulties (besides the issues when you need to find the 'switch language' option in an unknown (to you) language.
Well, why not use currency symbols to represent language? Same amount of correctness.
If you like flags because they are colorful and memorable icons, you can use them to represent time zones. Much more convenient than some obscure "UTC+7" or "PT", isn’t it?
If you like flags because they are colorful and memorable icons, you can use them to represent time zones. Much more convenient than some obscure "UTC+7" or "PT", isn’t it?
> Same amount of correctness.
Because a currency symbol is less correct (think $) and isn't as recognisable. Flags have colours that make them easier to pick out, and can be displayed at much smaller resolutions.
Because a currency symbol is less correct (think $) and isn't as recognisable. Flags have colours that make them easier to pick out, and can be displayed at much smaller resolutions.
Why using $ symbol to represent English is less correct than using the US flag?
(Re: colors: see my suggestion to use these colorful icons to represent time zones)
(Re: colors: see my suggestion to use these colorful icons to represent time zones)
If you differentiate between different types of english, it makes sense to show a US flag or UK flag for the different regional variations.
If you have only one version per language, just show the flags side by side. UK/US/AU/NZ for english, DE/AT/CH for German, etc.
On the other hand € stands for 20+ languages and $ means USD, NZD, CAD, many kinds of Peso and many other types of dollar.
If you have only one version per language, just show the flags side by side. UK/US/AU/NZ for english, DE/AT/CH for German, etc.
On the other hand € stands for 20+ languages and $ means USD, NZD, CAD, many kinds of Peso and many other types of dollar.
How many flags would you use for English? If you want to use flags of the most populous countries where English is the primary language, the second country after the US is Nigeria (182 m people).
How many flags would you use for Spanish? French?
How many flags would you use for Spanish? French?
Not to mention that many currencies don't have symbols at all.
Well, how many languages have flags? There are thousands of languages, but hundreds of countries. Surely, some languages would be left without a flag?
And this doesn’t affect just some "obscure" languages. For instance, what flag would you use for Arabic, an official UN language? What language does a flag of India, most populous language stand for?
And this doesn’t affect just some "obscure" languages. For instance, what flag would you use for Arabic, an official UN language? What language does a flag of India, most populous language stand for?
Flags don't have to be for countries, nor does there have to be a 1:1 relationship between language and flag.
Because about two dozen countries use $ as their currency symbol and another half dozen or so $ with another letter or two and not all of them have English as an official language (or an only technically not official language like the us).
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 using either the UK or US flag is less likely to confuse anyone than not using any flag, and that anyone offended by this needs to grow a tougher skin.
The fact that any mapping from a language to a flag is to some extent arbitrary does not imply that no mapping at all is better. This sounds like a variation of the Sorites paradox.
Furthermore, I find it amusing that a website dedicated to languages, which are roughly sets of arbitrary conventions we use to communicate, is offended by the choice of another arbitrary convention to communicate.
I would argue that using either the UK or US flag is less likely to confuse anyone than not using any flag, and that anyone offended by this needs to grow a tougher skin.
The fact that any mapping from a language to a flag is to some extent arbitrary does not imply that no mapping at all is better. This sounds like a variation of the Sorites paradox.
Furthermore, I find it amusing that a website dedicated to languages, which are roughly sets of arbitrary conventions we use to communicate, is offended by the choice of another arbitrary convention to communicate.
I know a person from Ireland that doesn't take well to being associated with the "Butcher's apron" as he refers to the flag of Great Britain. Ireland has its own flag and they are very proud of it. And they'll object to any suggestion that they are English.
And of course England has its own flag, which is not the same as that of Great Britain. And of course quite a few countries still using English because they were formerly colonized/oppressed/etc. (take your pick) and might have a thing or two to say about having to deal with the British flag.
There are a lot more languages than countries. And language variations, dialects, etc. And a lot of flag / language combinations are confusing, insulting, historically incorrect, or not that helpful. Like the British, the French were all over the place and there are lots of places that speak French that don't use the French flag. Likewise Spanish is used all over the Americas. India has about 21 official languages (I think, might be more). One of which is English. So, it's complicated for English and it doesn't really get any better for other languages.
Telling people to grow a tougher skin isn't particularly user friendly or that helpful.
And of course England has its own flag, which is not the same as that of Great Britain. And of course quite a few countries still using English because they were formerly colonized/oppressed/etc. (take your pick) and might have a thing or two to say about having to deal with the British flag.
There are a lot more languages than countries. And language variations, dialects, etc. And a lot of flag / language combinations are confusing, insulting, historically incorrect, or not that helpful. Like the British, the French were all over the place and there are lots of places that speak French that don't use the French flag. Likewise Spanish is used all over the Americas. India has about 21 official languages (I think, might be more). One of which is English. So, it's complicated for English and it doesn't really get any better for other languages.
Telling people to grow a tougher skin isn't particularly user friendly or that helpful.
> And of course quite a few countries still using English because they were formerly colonized/oppressed/etc. (take your pick) and might have a thing or two to say about having to deal with the British flag.
What about the fact that their language would be listed as "English", therefore reminding them it originated in England? Is listing the language as "English" significantly different from listing it as "<UK flag> English"? Should we rename the language to "Irish" ? Then what about the inhabitants of Ireland who don't identify as Irish?
You can always take the most offensive interpretation "This flag is claiming that Irish people are English, therefore contribute to historical oppression, etc".
But you can also take a more natural and charitable interpretation, which is that most people associate the UK flag to English, and the flag is therefore a convenient visual indication.
> it's complicated for English and it doesn't really get any better for other languages.
I agree, there is complexity and arbitrariness in any "language -> flag" mapping. I am arguing that you can make practical decisions even in the presence of complexity.
> Telling people to grow a tougher skin isn't particularly user friendly or that helpful.
Arguing you can't do something because someone will be offended is also not very helpful: you can almost always find some offensive interpretation of anything.
What about the fact that their language would be listed as "English", therefore reminding them it originated in England? Is listing the language as "English" significantly different from listing it as "<UK flag> English"? Should we rename the language to "Irish" ? Then what about the inhabitants of Ireland who don't identify as Irish?
You can always take the most offensive interpretation "This flag is claiming that Irish people are English, therefore contribute to historical oppression, etc".
But you can also take a more natural and charitable interpretation, which is that most people associate the UK flag to English, and the flag is therefore a convenient visual indication.
> it's complicated for English and it doesn't really get any better for other languages.
I agree, there is complexity and arbitrariness in any "language -> flag" mapping. I am arguing that you can make practical decisions even in the presence of complexity.
> Telling people to grow a tougher skin isn't particularly user friendly or that helpful.
Arguing you can't do something because someone will be offended is also not very helpful: you can almost always find some offensive interpretation of anything.
> Arguing you can't do something because someone will be offended is also not very helpful: you can almost always find some offensive interpretation of anything
You mentioned the sorites paradox earlier. Do you think it could be applied here as well?
You mentioned the sorites paradox earlier. Do you think it could be applied here as well?
> you can almost always find some offensive interpretation of anything.
This is the "perfect is the enemy of good" fallacy. We may not be able to find something that is not offensive to anyone in the world, but we can pick a convention that doesn't actively force hundreds of millions of people to identify themselves with colonial powers that committed genocide against their ancestors.
If this sounds hyperbolic to you, I strongly recommend reading up on the history of English treatment of the Irish over the centuries. Then follow that by learning more about African colonization. This isn't just a matter of growing thicker skin, the intergenerational trauma these people feel is very very real.
This is the "perfect is the enemy of good" fallacy. We may not be able to find something that is not offensive to anyone in the world, but we can pick a convention that doesn't actively force hundreds of millions of people to identify themselves with colonial powers that committed genocide against their ancestors.
If this sounds hyperbolic to you, I strongly recommend reading up on the history of English treatment of the Irish over the centuries. Then follow that by learning more about African colonization. This isn't just a matter of growing thicker skin, the intergenerational trauma these people feel is very very real.
What’s reasonable for some is hyperbolic for others. So it feels like emotional abuse / bullying; or at least as a real world example of a utility monster: Someone gets so much harm from a little inconvenience that all people are supposed to bow down to them.
As I said:
> I strongly recommend reading up on the history of English treatment of the Irish over the centuries. Then follow that by learning more about African colonization.
We're not talking about some your-grandpa-defrauded-my-grandpa historical slight, we're talking about genocide systematically executed under the authority of that flag. The emotions experienced by these people are in the same category as those experienced by Jews when they see a swastika. If you don't see how that's a bigger deal than you're making it sound then I don't know how to help you.
> I strongly recommend reading up on the history of English treatment of the Irish over the centuries. Then follow that by learning more about African colonization.
We're not talking about some your-grandpa-defrauded-my-grandpa historical slight, we're talking about genocide systematically executed under the authority of that flag. The emotions experienced by these people are in the same category as those experienced by Jews when they see a swastika. If you don't see how that's a bigger deal than you're making it sound then I don't know how to help you.
If you don’t see why censoring a British flag that represents a language literally called _English_ seems entirely pointless and laughable to some people then I don’t know how to help you.
> less likely to confuse anyone than not using any flag
This doesn't seem obvious to me. I don't think the word "English" is likely to confuse any English speaker.
> anyone offended by this needs to grow a tougher skin
Are you saying this with the personal experience of being from a country that now speaks the language of its colonizer?
This doesn't seem obvious to me. I don't think the word "English" is likely to confuse any English speaker.
> anyone offended by this needs to grow a tougher skin
Are you saying this with the personal experience of being from a country that now speaks the language of its colonizer?
> Are you saying this with the personal experience of being from a country that now speaks the language of its colonizer?
And to be clear, the US is excluded from this. Our cultural memory of our colonial history is an outlier—for most Americans our sense of our relationship with Britain is more that of friendly rivals than colonizer-colonized. The difference is largely because most of us are descended from the colonists (or people who arrived much later), not from the people that were there first, so the abuses that our ancestors suffered barely even register on the scale of colonial abuse.
That contrasts sharply with how the Irish or most Africans feel towards their former colonial powers. It's hard to feel positively towards a flag that represents a power that repeatedly committed genocide against your people.
And to be clear, the US is excluded from this. Our cultural memory of our colonial history is an outlier—for most Americans our sense of our relationship with Britain is more that of friendly rivals than colonizer-colonized. The difference is largely because most of us are descended from the colonists (or people who arrived much later), not from the people that were there first, so the abuses that our ancestors suffered barely even register on the scale of colonial abuse.
That contrasts sharply with how the Irish or most Africans feel towards their former colonial powers. It's hard to feel positively towards a flag that represents a power that repeatedly committed genocide against your people.
To give you an example of flags being offensive: most people who would ever choose Belarusian anywhere in any computer system will find the current Belarusian flag offensive because it represents the government that oppresses their culture and represses people who dare use the language in public.
Another example: a lot of people speak Russian outside of Russia. Many of them have nothing to do with Russia and never lived there, and even without the devastating war that Russia is currently waging against Ukraine they don't want to associate their language with Russia and its flag.
Another example: a lot of people speak Russian outside of Russia. Many of them have nothing to do with Russia and never lived there, and even without the devastating war that Russia is currently waging against Ukraine they don't want to associate their language with Russia and its flag.
Thanks, these are indeed good arguments. This made me reconsider but I am still not entirely convinced. I would argue that the association of the flag with the current government rests largely in the mind of the reader, not in the convention itself.
There's always ISO 639, which has three chances of being acceptable to end users: slim, fat, and none.
What flag would you suggest for http://als.wikipedia.org or http://pdc.wikipedia.org ?
What flag would you suggest for http://als.wikipedia.org or http://pdc.wikipedia.org ?
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.
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.
The UK, like the US, doesn't have an official language. Though, constituent parts of it have given official standing to other languages.
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.
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.
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 speak.
Let's not lose the practical aspect of quick recognition. I know there might be 20+ languages spoken in Niger but they won't be on your run-of-the-mill eshop. The dropdown will have 10 options at most and the person in Niger can make the pick faster with the French flag. The bigger conondrum might be which flag to choose for Arabic.
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 speak.
Let's not lose the practical aspect of quick recognition. I know there might be 20+ languages spoken in Niger but they won't be on your run-of-the-mill eshop. The dropdown will have 10 options at most and the person in Niger can make the pick faster with the French flag. The bigger conondrum might be which flag to choose for Arabic.
> The bigger conondrum might be which flag to choose for Arabic.
By your logic I'm not sure why this is a conundrum—Saudi Arabia, of course!
Arabic is actually the perfect example of why flags for languages are problematic—just because two countries share a language doesn't mean they're on good terms with each other. That's easy to see with Arabic because tensions in the Middle East are always in the news. You know instinctively that using the Saudi flag to represent Arabic would be a terrible idea.
But the same problems apply to other countries, just less prominently. African people often have... complicated feelings towards the countries that were their former colonizers. The language is theirs now, for better or worse, but that doesn't mean that they're comfortable picking a French flag when selecting the language for their personal device.
By your logic I'm not sure why this is a conundrum—Saudi Arabia, of course!
Arabic is actually the perfect example of why flags for languages are problematic—just because two countries share a language doesn't mean they're on good terms with each other. That's easy to see with Arabic because tensions in the Middle East are always in the news. You know instinctively that using the Saudi flag to represent Arabic would be a terrible idea.
But the same problems apply to other countries, just less prominently. African people often have... complicated feelings towards the countries that were their former colonizers. The language is theirs now, for better or worse, but that doesn't mean that they're comfortable picking a French flag when selecting the language for their personal device.
I feel the colonial resentments and I am not a yeehaa proponent of flags.
But let's be honest: will the translation of the page be in idiomatic Nigerian French? It's mostly likely going to be French French.
I am not that offended by US flag for English because the spelling will most likely be American and thus different from UK and lot of other Commonwealth countries.
But let's be honest: will the translation of the page be in idiomatic Nigerian French? It's mostly likely going to be French French.
I am not that offended by US flag for English because the spelling will most likely be American and thus different from UK and lot of other Commonwealth countries.
Even for English it’s problematic. Do you use the flag of the UK?, the USA?, England?
Yeah, definitely, but I find in this thread that using English as an example doesn't work because people will (from the perspective of someone in the US or UK) say that it's not a big deal to just pick a flag from a different country.
In the case of the UK and the USA—where we're at worst friendly rivals—this is a reasonable take, but you can't generalize our relationship to all of the other countries in the world that speak the language of former colonizers.
In the case of the UK and the USA—where we're at worst friendly rivals—this is a reasonable take, but you can't generalize our relationship to all of the other countries in the world that speak the language of former colonizers.
> 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.
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.
Well aktschually... you can then say it originates somewhere in India or rather Pontic-Caspian steppe. The Italian version of Vulgar Latin is called Italian.
Being pedantic is not practical for the UX of locale dropdowns. There are issues with flags. Franks being a Germanic tribe is not one of them.
Although maybe putting a Roman SPQR flag and Latin locale would save you some costs. With some effort it should be comprehensible by half of Europe.
Being pedantic is not practical for the UX of locale dropdowns. There are issues with flags. Franks being a Germanic tribe is not one of them.
Although maybe putting a Roman SPQR flag and Latin locale would save you some costs. With some effort it should be comprehensible by half of Europe.
Hong Kong people speak Cantonese, and there is no "Canton" flag. (Hong Kong does have its own flag, but sometimes people want to show only "country-level" flags and well...)
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!
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!
What's annoying is that Google is forcing me to use some of its products in Russian which is offensive to me!
Explain? Why can't you use English for example?
Sometimes Google seems / seemed to decide its idea of your location should trump your browser or even account settings.
At one point our (Swiss, in England) office often had Google.com deciding we should be reading in Polish. Never really understood why.
In my settings I applied Kyrgyz as my primary language and English as the second one: https://imgz.org/iCtBEEby.png
For some reason Google decides that I prefer Russian even if I am forcing it to use English (assuming that `?hl=en` switches the interface language): https://imgz.org/i36byD3g.png
For some reason Google decides that I prefer Russian even if I am forcing it to use English (assuming that `?hl=en` switches the interface language): https://imgz.org/i36byD3g.png
If only there was some two decades old standardized way for users to specify which languages they prefer, and, dare I dream, the order and relative level of preference.
In my experience, most engineers and product managers assume that users are governed by some monolithic, absolute power with a single official way of doing things.
This is useful early on to deliver their MVP and grab their first batch of users.
However, their assumption quickly falls apart when a significant subset of those users live in some region with their own regulations. Gambling/betting, invoicing, and payment processing are just a few examples.
If I see a flag icon next to a language, it's not worrying by itself, but it's a red flag about how things work under the hood. It's telling me that the company does not go the extra mile to build a realistic mental model that works for all users. And eventually, the product's limitations will impact some feature that is mission critical for my business.
This is useful early on to deliver their MVP and grab their first batch of users.
However, their assumption quickly falls apart when a significant subset of those users live in some region with their own regulations. Gambling/betting, invoicing, and payment processing are just a few examples.
If I see a flag icon next to a language, it's not worrying by itself, but it's a red flag about how things work under the hood. It's telling me that the company does not go the extra mile to build a realistic mental model that works for all users. And eventually, the product's limitations will impact some feature that is mission critical for my business.
I had this fight for a few years while I worked on the development of parking systems (ie. kiosk/pos systems used in parking garages). The use of those flags was so deeply engrained in that industry... For Dutch speakers, folks in Belgium had to choose the flag of the Netherlands. French flag for the Wallons. Flag of Germany for that small part of Belgium that speaks German. Sometimes blended Dutch/Belgian and French/Belgian flags were used, but never a blended German/Belgian flag. Also, the French and Dutch flags have the same colors. It was a mess. But the coworkers wanted it, the customers wanted it, I probably gave in, I don't remember...
Edit: I had a similar fight over the difference between time zones and time periods.
Edit: I had a similar fight over the difference between time zones and time periods.
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.
My 2c:
I think that symbols are useful in this case and that the number of potentially ambiguous/offensive situations is low enough that scrapping flags is worse overall.
Bathroom signs come to mind. Yes, not all men wear trousers, yes, not all women wear skirts, if you swing that way, perhaps not all men are men. Some of us don't even have legs. But you know what it means, it's standardised, and it saves us all a ton of time not having to do a double take at a clever bathroom door with an art project on it, in the same way that a flag in the corner of a webpage immediately draws the eye.
I think that symbols are useful in this case and that the number of potentially ambiguous/offensive situations is low enough that scrapping flags is worse overall.
Bathroom signs come to mind. Yes, not all men wear trousers, yes, not all women wear skirts, if you swing that way, perhaps not all men are men. Some of us don't even have legs. But you know what it means, it's standardised, and it saves us all a ton of time not having to do a double take at a clever bathroom door with an art project on it, in the same way that a flag in the corner of a webpage immediately draws the eye.
Perhaps one day the engineers and designers will make peace, the former conceding the need to be technically correct despite wildly successful UI, the latter adding bevels back to buttons.
If asked to make icons for languages, whet else would you even use instead of flags? Icons help find things faster, and the users are used to seeing flags next to language labels.
In some cases, a single flag indeed does not sufficiently describe an option. In this case, combine, like, two flags, e.g. (flag of Spain)(flag of Columbia), or invent some other clever icon to disambiguate selection.
In some cases, a single flag indeed does not sufficiently describe an option. In this case, combine, like, two flags, e.g. (flag of Spain)(flag of Columbia), or invent some other clever icon to disambiguate selection.
> Icons help find things faster, [...]
I _highly_ doubt that being able to input the name of the language (or country or whatever), both in its native and translated form, is slower than scrolling through all possible icons.
I _highly_ doubt that being able to input the name of the language (or country or whatever), both in its native and translated form, is slower than scrolling through all possible icons.
Typing the whole name takes longer and you don't always know exactly what to type, so you have to type a bit of the name, then look at the list. Flags help with the latter part.
Here's a funny example of where flags are useful:
People from Slovenia [SI] (natively "Slovenija") speak Slovene/Slovenian [sl], natively "Slovenščina", ajdective "slovensko".
People from Slovakia [SK] (natively "Slovensko") speak Slovak [sk], natively "Slovenčina", adjective "slovensky".
Opening up a language picker, I usually search for "slo" (if there even is a search bar!) and then read the options left. But since the difference can be as little as a single character, even without dyslexia and with good eyesight, I still screw it up sometimes. The flags however, even when small and/or blurry, can still be quite easily differentiated by anyone familiar with both.
Here's a funny example of where flags are useful:
People from Slovenia [SI] (natively "Slovenija") speak Slovene/Slovenian [sl], natively "Slovenščina", ajdective "slovensko".
People from Slovakia [SK] (natively "Slovensko") speak Slovak [sk], natively "Slovenčina", adjective "slovensky".
Opening up a language picker, I usually search for "slo" (if there even is a search bar!) and then read the options left. But since the difference can be as little as a single character, even without dyslexia and with good eyesight, I still screw it up sometimes. The flags however, even when small and/or blurry, can still be quite easily differentiated by anyone familiar with both.
> Typing the whole name takes longer[...]
At least not for me.
> The flags however, even when small and/or blurry, can still be quite easily differentiated by anyone familiar with both.
Well I'm actually living in Slovakia and _always_ use the difference between "Slovenščina/Slovinčina" and "Slovenčina/Slovenčina", because the flags are way more similar for me in their usual size than the names (the two carons make Slovene stand out more than the different coats of arms (a blue dot vs. a red dot) in the flags). Of course, in Slovak the difference between Slovinčina and Slovenčina is more of a problem when just looking at the names - that's when search comes in handy for me.
At least not for me.
> The flags however, even when small and/or blurry, can still be quite easily differentiated by anyone familiar with both.
Well I'm actually living in Slovakia and _always_ use the difference between "Slovenščina/Slovinčina" and "Slovenčina/Slovenčina", because the flags are way more similar for me in their usual size than the names (the two carons make Slovene stand out more than the different coats of arms (a blue dot vs. a red dot) in the flags). Of course, in Slovak the difference between Slovinčina and Slovenčina is more of a problem when just looking at the names - that's when search comes in handy for me.
Example where entering the name of the laqnguage would be slower than scrolling through options: a video game with a controller.
I don't think I've ever seen that as a 'type in the language you want' option, only scrolling through options.
Also it might only have 5-10 options to begin with, since localization of a video game into a bunch of languages can be pretty expensive, especially if it's a text-heavy game.
I don't think I've ever seen that as a 'type in the language you want' option, only scrolling through options.
Also it might only have 5-10 options to begin with, since localization of a video game into a bunch of languages can be pretty expensive, especially if it's a text-heavy game.
I think what apple landed on—i.e. the ISO 639-1 2-character language code represented as an icon—is just about as optimal as you could get. (I supposed also supporting 3-character ISO 639-2 codes would be even better.) But finding any flag to represent English alone is a nightmare.
At least on the web, you shouldn't even be using your web UI to change the language in the first place!
Browsers already send Accept-Language: headers. Just use that. Why complicate your UI? It's at best redundant and at worst annoying when a web site chooses to ignore my preference and rolls its own.
Browsers already send Accept-Language: headers. Just use that. Why complicate your UI? It's at best redundant and at worst annoying when a web site chooses to ignore my preference and rolls its own.
I often want to change the language depending on the context of the website. Often you see machine translated text (in either direction) that's much less useful than the original. Also while I'm more familiar with many terms in my mother tongue, and some don't even have clear mappings to English, on many technical topics I'm much more familiar with the English terms.
By all means default to the Accept-Language header, but let me change it (and remember that choice)
By all means default to the Accept-Language header, but let me change it (and remember that choice)
You can change it by sending a different Accept-Language. It is per request, so you can send different ones to different hosts.
On the other hand, where is the UI in the browser to specify your language preference for each individual site? A person might have a general language preference, but might prefer to read particular sites in an alternate language, e.g. for practice learning a language. Firefox offers the option to specify an order of preferred languages globally, but as near as I can find, no way to specify on a per-site basis.
Interesting! I never considered the case you and the other replier brought up where people might want to browse different sites in different languages. Learned something new today, thank you!
I suppose browsers could/should add support for this use case, none of the major ones do as far as I know.
At the very least, I maintain that sites should use Accept-Language: as a default, absent any site-specific configuration that they offer. One of the huge things I hate about Google and a few other sites is that they deliberately ignore my Accept-Language: header and instead rely on IP-Geolocation. So if I'm traveling in another country, suddenly Google and those other sites change to a different language on me. Maddening.
I suppose browsers could/should add support for this use case, none of the major ones do as far as I know.
At the very least, I maintain that sites should use Accept-Language: as a default, absent any site-specific configuration that they offer. One of the huge things I hate about Google and a few other sites is that they deliberately ignore my Accept-Language: header and instead rely on IP-Geolocation. So if I'm traveling in another country, suddenly Google and those other sites change to a different language on me. Maddening.
First, because I want to switch away from badly translated content (or worse, badly machine translated content, cough cough Microsoft), even if I generally prefer it in my native tongue. I agree this should be a more accessible feature at the browser itself, maybe an extension.
And second, because many corporations conflate language with region, so they redirect me to the wrong country-specific site, or at least one useless to me compared to the global (which usually means US) one.
And second, because many corporations conflate language with region, so they redirect me to the wrong country-specific site, or at least one useless to me compared to the global (which usually means US) one.
I browse the web in multiple languages. I don't even know how to change my Accept-Language headers. I prefer to be able to just choose the language while I'm browsing. That also lets me easily see what languages the site actually offers.
I also browse the web in multiple languages. Accept-Language follows the language selection of the browser or OS (sadly Apple is kinda stupid so they only use the first language configured in system preferences, if you configure multiple languages in Firefox's preferences it actually follows that).
I absolutely love when websites randomly pick a language I can't read, which is not anywhere in my accept-languages (which does contain languages they do support), with a language selector hidden somewhere unspecified on the page. It's even better when I need to go through a cookie popup I can't bypass in that language I can't read without a language selector before I can do anything else.
That second paragraph is sarcastic, just in case.
I absolutely love when websites randomly pick a language I can't read, which is not anywhere in my accept-languages (which does contain languages they do support), with a language selector hidden somewhere unspecified on the page. It's even better when I need to go through a cookie popup I can't bypass in that language I can't read without a language selector before I can do anything else.
That second paragraph is sarcastic, just in case.
> It's even better when I need to go through a cookie popup I can't bypass in that language I can't read without a language selector before I can do anything else.
But if you could read, you wouldn't consent to it...
But if you could read, you wouldn't consent to it...
I often can't even consent, because I don't even know what button would be "Yes sure I'll sell my soul to you for no consideration that sounds great".
It's also terribly annoying when I've found a page through a search engine and the site decides that I don't want that language. Navigates me to the language of my accept-language, decides that's on a different domain which is managed by a different team/CMS and doesn't have or can't find the page I was looking for in the first place.
This would be fine if all computers were guaranteed to be personal computers that know their current user's preferences.
But they're not. Library computers exist. Shared office computers exist. Internet cafes exist. Let's call these "kiosk computers."
The optimal way to balance access needs here, IMHO, would be for either Operating Systems on kiosk computers, or maybe specifically browsers on kiosk computers, to offer a very quick, session-ephemeral toggle for what language the current user wants to see UI and content in.
(Probably, given that kiosk computers are almost always left on default settings of the OS, while personal computers are, well, personalized, such a toggle should be on by default, with users of personal computers expected to disable it.)
But until such a time as that ever happens, I would expect that websites will continue to simulate this thing the OS isn't offering.
But they're not. Library computers exist. Shared office computers exist. Internet cafes exist. Let's call these "kiosk computers."
The optimal way to balance access needs here, IMHO, would be for either Operating Systems on kiosk computers, or maybe specifically browsers on kiosk computers, to offer a very quick, session-ephemeral toggle for what language the current user wants to see UI and content in.
(Probably, given that kiosk computers are almost always left on default settings of the OS, while personal computers are, well, personalized, such a toggle should be on by default, with users of personal computers expected to disable it.)
But until such a time as that ever happens, I would expect that websites will continue to simulate this thing the OS isn't offering.
Well, given how bad some technical translations happen to be, I want to see regular Web content in one of my native languages, but read programming stuff in English, so Accept-Language: headers alone won't do it anyway.
Keyboard layouts are more country related than language related. At least among French speakers that's the case. So using country flags probably makes sense here.
Keyboard layouts might be linked to specific countries, but language usage extends far beyond national borders. For example, Russian is spoken by communities in the US who may not identify with the Russian flag (or even stand against it), and French is widely used in places like Niger, where the French flag may hold little relevance. Thus, associating languages strictly with country flags can overlook the diverse and global nature of language communities.
Associating my use of Apple products with Apple Computer overlooks the diverse and global nature of computing communities
There's multilingual countries with multiple local layouts. (Like Swiss German and Swiss French layouts for instance)
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.
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.
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.
We _cannot_ get our office 365 environment to consistently use the correct locale. It’s shockingly frustrating to find yet another place that uses U.S. date format and spelling.
You could choose violence and use the Quebec flag for English because most people there speak English, right?
Is there any standardization on which flag gets used for Arabic?
Is there any standardization on which flag gets used for Arabic?
Just be neutral and go for India. Or Australia. Or randomly pick from all English speaking countries...
The real solution is obviously to use geolocation to find the closest country which officially uses the individual language(s).
In that situation my country would probably be an option so I wouldn’t be choosing between UK or USA…
I like the post-Brexit solution of using the Éire flag.
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.
Anyway the flags don't necessarily make it any more confusing.
I personally find that new UI much more difficult to parse.
I would guess Apple removed the flags to sidestep thorny geopolitical issues.
For example, China and Taiwan will disagree on what flag to show for the language they share.
Also, the article shows two different parts of the UI. For Monterey, it shows the UI for adding a language, for the older OS, that for adding a keyboard layout.
That UI still has ‘icons’ (a dark rounded rectangle with letters in it, for example “SQ” for “Albanian” or “USPC” for “US International – PC”) in Monterey.
For example, China and Taiwan will disagree on what flag to show for the language they share.
Also, the article shows two different parts of the UI. For Monterey, it shows the UI for adding a language, for the older OS, that for adding a keyboard layout.
That UI still has ‘icons’ (a dark rounded rectangle with letters in it, for example “SQ” for “Albanian” or “USPC” for “US International – PC”) in Monterey.
This is interesting as I've been working on localisation for an app I've made. It's in Electron. I find it super frustrating that when I ask for `navigator.languages` I get 'en-US' first, even though I have my language set to 'en-CA' (which showed up second, I think). I can only assume they were working around some dumb web software that didn't realise that if it didn't see your specific language code it should fall back to a more generic language. Anyone got tips for getting the most specific language code in the general case?
As a typical American, I have no idea what the flag of England (or the UK) looks like despite being fairly well educated. When this flag for language thing comes up I usually end up doing some kind of guess and check thing to find English. Since this doesn't happen very often I always forget which one I'm supposed to pick.
JavaScript is not a layout tool https://youtube.com/shorts/kGkKV9KVcKc?si=fJD9nqlK38buAkU8
Is there a language with a flag apart from Esperanto?
It’s a convincing essay, even though I miss seeing my country’s flag in the menu bar (especially as I’m not living there).
Not a serious proposal: Google is pretty good at detecting when I have the keyboard in the wrong character set and providing me with results for what I would have typed; maybe there just needs to be a text box where you type "what the fuck?" in your own language and script, and the back end guesses it from there?
This feels more like someone with a political axe to grind rather than a UX one. I travel full time and lived in 20 countries in the last year. Unfortunately many sites deliberately ignore Accept-Language headers and instead geolocate you and guess your language, localizing the entire site including the language selection menu, so this is a problem I am very familiar with and I constantly need to change the language on virtually every site I visit.
Ideally a site's language selection menu button includes a globe icon so you can figure out where need to click to change the language, and a flag for quick identification.
Ideally a site's language selection menu button includes a globe icon so you can figure out where need to click to change the language, and a flag for quick identification.