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<span id="g_t_0040documentlanguage"></span><div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="_0040documentencoding.html" accesskey="n" rel="next"><code>@documentencoding</code></a>, Up: <a href="Internationalization.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Internationalization</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<hr>
<span id="g_t_0040documentlanguage-ll_005b_005fcc_005d_003a-Set-the-Document-Language"></span><h3 class="section">15.1 <code>@documentlanguage <var>ll</var>[_<var>cc</var>]</code>: Set the Document Language</h3>
<span id="documentlanguage"></span>
<span id="index-documentlanguage"></span>
<span id="index-Language_002c-declaring"></span>
<span id="index-Locale_002c-declaring"></span>
<span id="index-Document-language_002c-declaring"></span>
<p>The <code>@documentlanguage</code> command declares the current document
locale. Write it on a line by itself, near the beginning of the file.
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">@documentlanguage <var>ll</var>[_<var>cc</var>]
</pre></div>
<p>Include a two-letter ISO 639-2 language code (<var>ll</var>) following
the command name, optionally followed by an underscore and two-letter
ISO 3166 two-letter country code (<var>cc</var>). If you have a
multilingual document, the intent is to be able to use this command
multiple times, to declare each language change. If the command is
not used at all, the default is <code>en_US</code> for US English.
</p>
<p>As with GNU Gettext (see <cite><a href="../gettext/index.html#Top">Gettext</a></cite>), if the country
code is omitted, the main dialect is assumed where possible. For
example, <code>de</code> is equivalent to <code>de_DE</code> (German as spoken in
Germany).
</p>
<span id="index-Document-strings_002c-translation-of"></span>
<p>For Info and other online output, this command changes the translation
of various <em>document strings</em> such as “see” in cross-references
(see <a href="Cross-References.html">Cross References</a>), “Function” in defuns (see <a href="Definition-Commands.html">Definition Commands</a>), and so on. Some strings, such as “Node:”, “Next:”,
“Menu:”, etc., are keywords in Info output, so are not translated
there; they are translated in other output formats.
</p>
<span id="index-txi_002dcc_002etex"></span>
<p>For TeX, this command causes a file <samp>txi-<var>locale</var>.tex</samp> to
be read (if it exists). If <code>@documentlanguage</code> argument
contains the optional ‘<samp>_<var>cc</var></samp>’ suffix, this is tried first.
For example, with <code>@documentlanguage de_DE</code>, TeX first looks
for <samp>txi-de_DE.tex</samp>, then <samp>txi-de.tex</samp>.
</p>
<p>Such a <samp>txi-*</samp> file is intended to redefine the various English
words used in TeX output, such as ‘Chapter’, ‘See’, and so on. We
are aware that individual words like these cannot always be translated
in isolation, and that a very different strategy would be required for
ideographic (among other) scripts. Help in improving Texinfo’s
language support is welcome.
</p>
<span id="index-Hyphenation-patterns_002c-language_002ddependent"></span>
<p><code>@documentlanguage</code> also changes TeX’s current hyphenation
patterns, if the TeX program being run has the necessary support
included. This will generally not be the case for <code>tex</code>
itself, but will usually be the case for up-to-date distributions of
the extended TeX programs <code>etex</code> (DVI output) and
<code>pdftex</code> (PDF output). <code>texi2dvi</code> will use the
extended TeXs if they are available (see <a href="Format-with-texi2dvi.html">Format with <code>texi2dvi</code></a>).
</p>
<p>In September 2006, the W3C Internationalization Activity released a
new recommendation for specifying languages:
<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/bcp/bcp47.txt">http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/bcp/bcp47.txt</a>. When Gettext
supports this new scheme, Texinfo will too.
</p>
<span id="index-ISO-639_002d2-language-codes"></span>
<span id="index-ISO-3166-country-codes"></span>
<span id="index-Language-codes"></span>
<span id="index-Country-codes"></span>
<p>Since the lists of language codes and country codes are updated
relatively frequently, we don’t attempt to list them here. The valid
language codes are on the official home page for ISO 639,
<a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/">http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/</a>. The country codes and
the official web site for ISO 3166 can be found via
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166</a>.
</p>
<hr>
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Next: <a href="_0040documentencoding.html" accesskey="n" rel="next"><code>@documentencoding</code></a>, Up: <a href="Internationalization.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Internationalization</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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