Welcome to Elgg Community!

Thanks for this topic.

Issue is opened.

Hi Rubenalf,

I'll try and explain what the order is in which we try to determine the interface language for logged out users

1. an URL parameter 'hl=es' will set the language of the site to Spanish. 'hl' stands for Human Language and is a standard to support interface languages
2. Check a cookie with a language setting. This is set when the 'hl' parameter is detected so following pages don't need the parameter.
3. Browser language, if you have your browser set to German the site will load in German.
4. Site default language
5. English as the fallback.

Also keep in mind not all languages are 100% translated so there could also be a mixture. If you wish to help translating Elgg in your language check out https://explore.transifex.com/elgg/elgg-core-5/

You can disable languages in the Site Settings in which case if the language from 1,2 or 3 isn't available it'll load the site language.

Thanks for your answer.

"if you have your browser set to German..."   In fact this computer is set to English, I should try using another PC set to Spanish

"an URL parameter 'hl=es' will set the language of the site to Spanish".   How to use the 'hl' parameter? What is the syntax?

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"If you wish to help translating Elgg..."   I have already registered for transiflex but it seems that someone at Elgg must approve it. 

Elgg says that the Spanish language is 52% translated, but comparing 'es.php' with 'en.php' I find that many lines are missing in 'es.php'.

I would also like to add a new language: Esperanto (eo). I have done a test by creating 'eo.php' in my site and the new language is recognized correctly.

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By the way, there is an old post that seems to be outdated. There it says:

"Elgg deals in language files. Go to your root folder and you will find a languages folder." In fact the languages folder is well hidden in '/elgg-site/vendor/elgg/elgg/languages'

And "you need to do is change the following:"

$english = array(

add_translation("en",$english);

Those strings no longer exist, you should ignore them. It is enough to change the file name from 'en.php' to 'eo.php' or whatever.

It would be good to add this information to the Developer Guides:Internationalization (http://learn.elgg.org/en/stable/guides/i18n.html) where it only deals with the translation of the plugins and does not mention the main language files.

You were right. Simply set the browser language to Spanish and Elgg respects the browser language. But IMHO the language defined on the site should be a priority. Thanks again.

"an URL parameter 'hl=es' will set the language of the site to Spanish".   How to use the 'hl' parameter? What is the syntax?

https://your-web-site.tdl/?hl=es

"If you wish to help translating Elgg..."   I have already registered for transiflex but it seems that someone at Elgg must approve it. 

I would also like to add a new language: Esperanto (eo). I have done a test by creating 'eo.php' in my site and the new language is recognized correctly.

approved the EO language

Elgg says that the Spanish language is 52% translated, but comparing 'es.php' with 'en.php' I find that many lines are missing in 'es.php'.

As you would expect with only 52%

It would be good to add this information to the Developer Guides:Internationalization (http://learn.elgg.org/en/stable/guides/i18n.html) where it only deals with the translation of the plugins and does not mention the main language files.

That is because the main languages files are managed by Transifex. We pull the translation before every release of Elgg.

It's not recommended to manually add language files to the Elgg core and Elgg core plugins as when you update those files might get lost or overridden.

approved the EO language

Thank you. I cannot translate because I am not a member of the Esperanto team. That's what Transifex says

Regarding the request to add Spanish (Argentina) to the project I never did it. (at least intentionally)

Thank you. I cannot translate because I am not a member of the Esperanto team. That's what Transifex says

DM me your Transifex username/email and I'll add you. And if you wish I can add you to Spanish as well, let me know in the DM.