Etymologia tvn LANG kai LANGUAGE

[Xenitellis S]

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 01:22:02 +0100
> From: Pablo Saratxaga <pablo at mandrakesoft.com>
> To: gnome-i18n at gnome.org
> Subject: Re: How to change locale
> 
> Kaixo!
> 
> On Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 03:44:09PM -0800, Dan Mueth wrote:
> 
> > Also, I don't understand the difference between LANG and LANGUAGE.
> 
> LANG was probably the first thing that appeared, a lot of years ago.
> It is only useful when it is the only one defined, as then other LC_*
> get it value. Also, some old/bad programs still use it instead of
> the correct way (Netscape is an example, it uses LANG to find the
> localized X11 ressource files).
> 
> LANGUAGE variable has been introduced by GNU I think; it has two main
> advantages:
> * it allows to give a *list* of languages (that is very useful for
> portuguese
>   speaking people for example, that can then benefit of pt and pt_BR
>   translations)
> * it only is relevant for text messages translations, it doesn't mess
>   at all with locale config in fact (that allows to set locale for a given
>   language (that is, support to input and output in that language, sorting
>   order, etc); yet have the messages in another.
> 
> > If I
> > type 'locale' then LANG and all the LC_* variables show up but not
> > LANGUAGE.
> 
> You need to do echo $LANGUAGE.
> That being said, it may be a nice addition to GNU locale command to
> display also LANGUAGE I think.
> 
> > And then there is the issue of LINGUAS which I believe you set at build
> 
> Yes, LINGUAS defines the languages to install when you compile and install
> a
> program.
> 
> > Does anybody know of a document or web page which explains all this, or
> 
> The info page of GNU libc, in the gettext section, gives info about it.
> 
>