3 ms·

Languages are not countries. This website described in this article has the flag of the USA followed by "English", which as a British person I find both alienat

Languages are not countries. This website described in this article has the flag of the USA followed by "English", which as a British person I find both alienating and historically bizarre. Likewise, you shouldn't be serving up content to Latin-Americans with the Spanish flag on it! How about the German flag for German-speaking Austrians? Or the Chinese flag for Mandarin speakers in Taiwan?

maxerickson 14y ago
Isn't it just a phrase? Like "USA English"?
jiggy2011 14y ago
Flags provide quickly recognisable iconography, much easier for me as a brit to recognise a union flag in a long list than the word "English". But yes there are dilemmas, for example most Portuguese speakers live in Brazil.
jeresig 14y ago
A couple quick points: 1) If anyone ever comes up with a location-agnostic language icon for English, I'll implement it in a heartbeat. Using the Japanese flag for Japanese seems very safe. 2) Based upon the traffic to my site so far, all of my English-speaking audience is from the US. 3) The only time you'd be seeing the "US" flag (which does represent en-US, in my case) is when you're on the Japanese version of the site.
- jahewson 14y ago
  Why do you need an icon? Google Translate doesn't.
crazygringo 14y ago
Why are British people so bothered by this? Why is anybody bothered by it? I'm an American and have used plenty of (European) websites and product manuals where English is identified by a British flag. I have no problem with that. And plenty of (American) websites and product manuals where English is identified by an American flag. Which makes sense to me. Why is that such a problem to you? It's true that languages are not countries, but languages almost always do exist in country-specific versions. British English is not American English. Brazilian Portuguese is not Portuguese from Portugal. Spanish in Mexico is different from Spanish in Argentina. Is doesn't seem that unreasonable to use the flag of the country-specific version of the language being translated. If you're doing Spanish, you have to choose which Spanish in the first place anyways. The Portuguese can deal with a Brazilian flag if they hired a Brazilian translator. And for super-huge sites, you'll probably have different sections for USA and Britain anyways, since they'll have different pricing, different products, etc.
- jahewson 14y ago
  Cultural imperialism is not acceptable. It is arrogance, and we British are acutely aware of that given the legacy of Empire. You're failing to understand the magnitude of the insult which occurs when you conflate a flag - which is a transient political statement, with a language - which is cultural and fundamental to one's identity. Instead of a drop-down menu of languages, the developer ends up creating a drop-down menu of political allegiances. Do you think that my friend's mother who fled the Iranian revolution wants to stare at the flag of the Islamic Republic just because she wants to view sites in Farsi? No. She has relatives who died because of what that flag represents. Furthermore your assertion about country-specificity doesn't work: she speaks the Iranian-specific form of Farsi. Political statements really matter, people live and die for flags. Right now there are riots in Ireland over the British flag http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57563606/police-attacked-again-in-40th-day-of-northern-ireland-flag-riots/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57563606/police-attacked... Would you suggest that we display the British flag to the Irish to represent "English"? They don't have a country-specific form of English either. How about we show the British flag in Zimbabwe, where it is the first language? It's probably a crime... Maybe the French flag in Quebec? Oops. How about the Cuban flag for Cuban-Americans who fled the revolution? The list goes on, and on ... So really, really, don't mix up political symbols with languages. For many people, it's a matter of life and death. You're not going to have a specialised version of your website for every country on Earth.

maxerickson 14y ago

Isn't it just a phrase? Like "USA English"?

jiggy2011 14y ago

Flags provide quickly recognisable iconography, much easier for me as a brit to recognise a union flag in a long list than the word "English". But yes there are dilemmas, for example most Portuguese speakers live in Brazil.

jeresig 14y ago

A couple quick points: 1) If anyone ever comes up with a location-agnostic language icon for English, I'll implement it in a heartbeat. Using the Japanese flag for Japanese seems very safe. 2) Based upon the traffic to my site so far, all of my English-speaking audience is from the US. 3) The only time you'd be seeing the "US" flag (which does represent en-US, in my case) is when you're on the Japanese version of the site.

jahewson 14y ago
Why do you need an icon? Google Translate doesn't.

crazygringo 14y ago

Why are British people so bothered by this? Why is anybody bothered by it? I'm an American and have used plenty of (European) websites and product manuals where English is identified by a British flag. I have no problem with that. And plenty of (American) websites and product manuals where English is identified by an American flag. Which makes sense to me. Why is that such a problem to you? It's true that languages are not countries, but languages almost always do exist in country-specific versions. British English is not American English. Brazilian Portuguese is not Portuguese from Portugal. Spanish in Mexico is different from Spanish in Argentina. Is doesn't seem that unreasonable to use the flag of the country-specific version of the language being translated. If you're doing Spanish, you have to choose which Spanish in the first place anyways. The Portuguese can deal with a Brazilian flag if they hired a Brazilian translator. And for super-huge sites, you'll probably have different sections for USA and Britain anyways, since they'll have different pricing, different products, etc.

jahewson 14y ago
Cultural imperialism is not acceptable. It is arrogance, and we British are acutely aware of that given the legacy of Empire. You're failing to understand the magnitude of the insult which occurs when you conflate a flag - which is a transient political statement, with a language - which is cultural and fundamental to one's identity. Instead of a drop-down menu of languages, the developer ends up creating a drop-down menu of political allegiances. Do you think that my friend's mother who fled the Iranian revolution wants to stare at the flag of the Islamic Republic just because she wants to view sites in Farsi? No. She has relatives who died because of what that flag represents. Furthermore your assertion about country-specificity doesn't work: she speaks the Iranian-specific form of Farsi. Political statements really matter, people live and die for flags. Right now there are riots in Ireland over the British flag http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57563606/police-attacked-again-in-40th-day-of-northern-ireland-flag-riots/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57563606/police-attacked... Would you suggest that we display the British flag to the Irish to represent "English"? They don't have a country-specific form of English either. How about we show the British flag in Zimbabwe, where it is the first language? It's probably a crime... Maybe the French flag in Quebec? Oops. How about the Cuban flag for Cuban-Americans who fled the revolution? The list goes on, and on ... So really, really, don't mix up political symbols with languages. For many people, it's a matter of life and death. You're not going to have a specialised version of your website for every country on Earth.