computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

, internationalization and localization ( American) or internationalisation and localisation (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

), often abbreviated i18n and L10n, are means of adapting

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

to different languages, regional peculiarities and technical requirements of a target locale. Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting internationalized software for a specific region or language by translating text and adding locale-specific components. Localization (which is potentially performed multiple times, for different locales) uses the infrastructure or flexibility provided by internationalization (which is ideally performed only once before localization, or as an integral part of ongoing development).

Naming

The terms are frequently abbreviated to the numeronyms ''i18n'' (where ''18'' stands for the number of letters between the first ''i'' and the last ''n'' in the word ''internationalization'', a usage coined at

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unti ...

in the 1970s or 1980s) and L10n for ''localization'', due to the length of the words. Some writers have the latter acronym capitalized to help distinguish the two. Some companies, like IBM and

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...

, use the term ''

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...

'', ''g11n'', for the combination of internationalization and localization.

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

defines internationalization as a combination of world-readiness and localization. World-readiness is a developer task, which enables a product to be used with multiple scripts and cultures (globalization) and separating user interface resources in a localizable format (localizability, abbreviated to ''L12y''). Hewlett-Packard and

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrit ...

created a system called "National Language Support" or "Native Language Support" (NLS) to produce localizable software.

Scope

According to ''Software without frontiers'', the design aspects to consider when internationalizing a product are "data encoding, data and documentation, software construction, hardware device support, user interaction"; while the key design areas to consider when making a fully internationalized product from scratch are "user interaction, algorithm design and data formats, software services, documentation". Translation is typically the most time-consuming component of language localization. This may involve: * For film, video, and audio, translation of spoken words or music lyrics, often using either dubbing or subtitles * Text translation for printed materials, digital media (possibly including error messages and documentation) * Potentially altering images and logos containing text to contain translations or generic icons * Different translation length and differences in character sizes (e.g. between

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

letters and

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...

) can cause layouts that work well in one language to work poorly in others * Consideration of differences in

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

, register or variety * Writing conventions like: ** Formatting of numbers (especially decimal separator and digit grouping) ** Date and time format, possibly including use of different calendars

Standard locale data

Computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

can encounter differences above and beyond straightforward translation of words and phrases, because computer programs can generate content dynamically. These differences may need to be taken into account by the internationalization process in preparation for translation. Many of these differences are so regular that a conversion between languages can be easily automated. The Common Locale Data Repository by

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

provides a collection of such differences. Its data is used by major

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s, including Microsoft Windows,

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

and

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

, and by major Internet companies or projects such as

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

. Examples of such differences include: * Different "scripts" in different

writing systems A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...

use different characters – a different set of letters, syllograms, logograms, or symbols. Modern systems use the

standard to represent many different languages with a single

character encoding Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values tha ...

. * Writing direction is left to right in most European languages, right-to-left in Hebrew and Arabic, or both in boustrophedon scripts, and optionally vertical in some Asian languages. * Complex text layout, for languages where characters change shape depending on context * Capitalization exists in some scripts and not in others * Different languages and writing systems have different text sorting rules * Different languages have different numeral systems, which might need to be supported if Western Arabic numerals are not used * Different languages have different pluralization rules, which can complicate programs that dynamically display numerical content. Other grammar rules might also vary, e.g.

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

. * Different languages use different punctuation (e.g. quoting text using double-quotes (" ") as in English, or guillemets (« ») as in French) * Keyboard shortcuts can only make use of buttons actually on the

keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. is the actu ...

which is being localized for. If a shortcut corresponds to a word in a particular language (e.g. Ctrl-s stands for "save" in English), it may need to be changed.

National conventions

Different countries have different economic conventions, including variations in: * Paper sizes * Broadcast television systems and popular storage media * Telephone number formats * Postal address formats,

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal ...

s, and choice of delivery services *

Currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general ...

(

symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different co ...

, positions of currency markers, and reasonable amounts due to different

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...

histories) – ISO 4217 codes are often used for internationalization *

System of measurement A system of measurement is a collection of units of measurement and rules relating them to each other. Systems of measurement have historically been important, regulated and defined for the purposes of science and commerce. Systems of measurement i ...

* Battery sizes * Voltage and current standards In particular, the United States and Europe differ in most of these cases. Other areas often follow one of these. Specific third-party services, such as online maps, weather reports, or payment service providers, might not be available worldwide from the same carriers, or at all.

Time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because i ...

s vary across the world, and this must be taken into account if a product originally only interacted with people in a single time zone. For internationalization, UTC is often used internally and then converted into a local time zone for display purposes. Different countries have different legal requirements, meaning for example: * Regulatory compliance may require customization for a particular jurisdiction, or a change to the product as a whole, such as: **

Privacy law Privacy law is the body of law that deals with the regulating, storing, and using of personally identifiable information, personal healthcare information, and financial information of individuals, which can be collected by governments, public o ...

compliance ** Additional

disclaimer A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship. In contrast to other terms for legally operative langua ...

s on a web site or packaging ** Different consumer labelling requirements ** Compliance with export restrictions and regulations on

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can dec ...

** Compliance with an Internet censorship regime or

subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...

procedures ** Requirements for accessibility ** Collecting different taxes, such as

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a gove ...

value added tax A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...

, or

customs duties A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and ...

** Sensitivity to different political issues, like

geographical naming disputes Geographical renaming is the changing of the name of a geographical feature or area. This can range from the change of a street name to a change to the name of a country. Some names are changed locally but the new names are not recognised by othe ...

and disputed borders shown on maps (e.g., India has proposed a bill that would make failing to show Kashmir and other areas as intended by the government a crime) * Government-assigned numbers have different formats (such as passports, Social Security Numbers and other national identification numbers) Localization also may take into account differences in culture, such as: * Local holidays *

Personal name A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is know ...

and

title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...

conventions *

Aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...

* Comprehensibility and cultural appropriateness of images and color symbolism *

Ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

, clothing, and socioeconomic status of people and architecture of locations pictured * Local customs and

conventions Convention may refer to: * Convention (norm), a custom or tradition, a standard of presentation or conduct ** Treaty, an agreement in international law * Convention (meeting), meeting of a (usually large) group of individuals and/or companies in a ...

, such as social taboos, popular local religions, or superstitions such as blood types in Japanese culture vs. astrological signs in other cultures

Business process for internationalizing software

In order to ''internationalize'' a product, it is important to look at a variety of markets that the product will foreseeably enter. Details such as field length for street addresses, unique format for the address, ability to make the postal code field optional to address countries that do not have postal codes or the state field for countries that do not have states, plus the introduction of new registration flows that adhere to local laws are just some of the examples that make internationalization a complex project. A broader approach takes into account cultural factors regarding for example the adaptation of the business process logic or the inclusion of individual cultural (behavioral) aspects. Already in the 1990s, companies such as

Bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species '' Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, incl ...

used

machine translation Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates t ...

( Systran) in large scale, for all their translation activity: human translators handled pre-editing (making the input machine-readable) and post-editing.

Engineering

Both in re-engineering an existing software or designing a new internationalized software, the first step of internationalization is to split each potentially locale-dependent part (whether code, text or data) into a separate module. Each module can then either rely on a standard library/dependency or be independently replaced as needed for each locale. The current prevailing practice is for applications to place text in resource files which are loaded during program execution as needed. These strings, stored in resource files, are relatively easy to translate. Programs are often built to reference resource libraries depending on the selected locale data. The storage for translatable and translated strings is sometimes called a message catalog as the strings are called messages. The catalog generally comprises a set of files in a specific localization format and a standard library to handle said format. One

software library In computer science, a library is a collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs, often for software development. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, message templates, pre-written code and sub ...

and format that aids this is gettext. Thus to get an application to support multiple languages one would design the application to select the relevant language resource file at runtime. The code required to manage data entry verification and many other locale-sensitive data types also must support differing locale requirements. Modern development systems and operating systems include sophisticated libraries for international support of these types, see also Standard locale data above. Many localization issues (e.g. writing direction, text sorting) require more profound changes in the software than text translation. For example, OpenOffice.org achieves this with compilation switches.

Process

A globalization method includes, after planning, three implementation steps: internationalization, localization and quality assurance. To some degree (e.g. for quality assurance), development teams include someone who handles the basic/central stages of the process which then enable all the others. Such persons typically understand foreign languages and cultures and have some technical background. Specialized technical writers are required to construct a culturally appropriate syntax for potentially complicated concepts, coupled with engineering resources to deploy and test the localization elements. Once properly internationalized, software can rely on more decentralized models for localization:

free and open source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

usually rely on self-localization by end-users and volunteers, sometimes organized in teams. The KDE3 project, for example, has been translated into over 100 languages;

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia Website, websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sit ...

in 270 languages, of which 100 mostly complete . When translating existing text to other languages, it is difficult to maintain the parallel versions of texts throughout the life of the product. For instance, if a message displayed to the user is modified, all of the translated versions must be changed.

Commercial considerations

In a commercial setting, the benefit from localization is access to more markets. In the early 1980s,

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatible ...

took two years to separate program code and text and lost the market lead in Europe over

Microsoft Multiplan Multiplan is spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft and introduced in 1982 as a competitor to VisiCalc. Multiplan was released first for computers running CP/M; it was developed using a Microsoft proprietary p-code C compiler as part of ...

. MicroPro found that using an Austrian translator for the West German market caused its WordStar documentation to, an executive said, not "have the tone it should have had". However, there are considerable costs involved, which go far beyond engineering. Further, business operations must adapt to manage the production, storage and distribution of multiple discrete localized products, which are often being sold in completely different currencies, regulatory environments and tax regimes. Finally, sales, marketing and technical support must also facilitate their own operations in the new languages, in order to support customers for the localized products. Particularly for relatively small language populations, it may never be economically viable to offer a localized product. Even where large language populations could justify localization for a given product, and a product's internal structure already permits localization, a given software developer or publisher may lack the size and sophistication to manage the ancillary functions associated with operating in multiple locales.

References

External links

*
Instantly Learn Localization Testing
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