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Setting the Default Language

Note: this page is not complete. If you have information on browser configuration that isn't listed below, please send it to webmaster@debian.org.

Obviously, not everyone in the world uses the same language. As the web grows it is becoming more common to find pages that are available in multiple languages. A standard was therefore introduced, called content negotiation, that allows a person to set the language(s) they prefer to receive documents in. The actual version delivered is negotiated between your browser and the server; your browser sends its preferences and the server decides which version to send based on your preferences, how it is configured and what versions of the document are available.

To set the default language in your browser you have to set a variable that gets passed to the web server. How this is done depends on the browser you are using.

lynx

You can either edit the preferred_language variable in your .lynxrc or set it using the 'O' command while in lynx.

netscape 3.x

Add

     *httpAcceptLanguage: [preferred_language string]

to the Netscape app-defaults file or ~/.Xresources

netscape 4.x

Use

     Edit -> Preferences -> Navigator -> Languages

Make sure you select the language from the choices. A number of people reported problems because they typed in the language by hand.

W3 (emacs based web browser)

(setq url-mime-language-string  "preferred_language=fr; q=1.0, en; q=0.5")

or using the custom package (assuming URL version p4.0pre.14):

Hypermedia -> URL -> Mime -> Mime Language String...

IE

     View -> Internet Options -> General/Languages

Opera

???

iCab

     Edit -> Preferences -> Browser -> Fonts,Languages

What should I set the variable to?

Since the original language of the Debian web pages is English and not all documents may be translated into your preferred language, it is a good idea to set your preferred language variable to allow English as a backup. For example, if you are a native French speaker using lynx, you would want the following line in your .lynxrc

preferred_language=fr; q=1.0, en; q=0.5

This tells the server that you would like the French version of the document if available, otherwise use the English one.

One thing you need to be careful of is using sub-categories of languages. Using 'en-GB, fr', for example, does not do what most people expect (if they have not read the http specification). A server that receives a request for a document with a preferred language of 'en-GB, fr' when both an 'en' and 'fr' version exist will serve the French one. It will only serve the English document before the French one if there is a version of the file with .en-gb for the language extension. Thus, you should configure your browser to send 'en-GB, en, fr' or simply 'en, fr'. It does work the other way though, e.g. a server can return en-us when en is requested.

We strongly recommend that you do not add country extensions to a language unless you have good reason. If you do add one, make sure you also include the language without the extension.

For more information about setting the preferred_language variable see the Apache documentation on content negotiation.

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How to set the default document language

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