# Vim documentation: mlang

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    *mlang.txt*     For Vim version 9.1.  Last change: 2022 Sep 17

    		  VIM REFERENCE MANUAL    by Bram Moolenaar

    Multi-language features				*multilang* *multi-lang*

    This is about using messages and menus in various languages.  For editing
    multibyte text see |multibyte|.

    The basics are explained in the user manual: |usr_45.txt|.

    1. Messages			|multilang-messages|
    2. Menus			|multilang-menus|
    3. Scripts			|multilang-scripts|

    Also see |help-translated| for multi-language help.

    {not available when compiled without the |+multi_lang| feature}

    ==============================================================================

    1. Messages						*multilang-messages*

    Vim picks up the locale from the environment.  In most cases this means Vim
    will use the language that you prefer, unless it's not available.

    To see a list of supported locale names on your system, look in one of these
    directories (for Unix):
    	/usr/lib/locale
    	/usr/share/locale
    Unfortunately, upper/lowercase differences matter.  Also watch out for the
    use of "-" and "_".

    					    *:lan* *:lang* *:language* *E197*
    :lan[guage]
    :lan[guage] mes[sages]
    :lan[guage] cty[pe]
    :lan[guage] tim[e]
    :lan[guage] col[late]
    			Print the current language (aka locale).
    			With the "messages" argument the language used for
    			messages is printed.  Technical: LC_MESSAGES.
    			With the "ctype" argument the language used for
    			character encoding is printed.  Technical: LC_CTYPE.
    			With the "time" argument the language used for
    			strftime() is printed.  Technical: LC_TIME.
    			With the "collate" argument the language used for
    			collation order is printed.  Technical: LC_COLLATE.
    			Without argument all parts of the locale are printed
    			(this is system dependent).
    			The current language can also be obtained with the
    			|v:lang|, |v:ctype|, |v:collate| and |v:lc_time|
    			variables.

    :lan[guage] {name}
    :lan[guage] mes[sages] {name}
    :lan[guage] cty[pe] {name}
    :lan[guage] tim[e] {name}
    :lan[guage] col[late] {name}
    			Set the current language (aka locale) to {name}.
    			The locale {name} must be a valid locale on your
    			system.  Some systems accept aliases like "en" or
    			"en_US", but some only accept the full specification
    			like "en_US.ISO_8859-1".  On Unix systems you can use
    			this command to see what locales are supported:
    				:!locale -a
     			With the "messages" argument the language used for
    			messages is set.  This can be different when you want,
    			for example, English messages while editing Japanese
    			text.  This sets $LC_MESSAGES.
    			With the "ctype" argument the language used for
    			character encoding is set.  This affects the libraries
    			that Vim was linked with.  It's unusual to set this to
    			a different value from 'encoding' or "C".  This sets
    			$LC_CTYPE.
    			With the "time" argument the language used for time
    			and date messages is set.  This affects strftime().
    			This sets $LC_TIME.
    			With the "collate" argument the language used for the
    			collation order is set.  This affects sorting of
    			characters. This sets $LC_COLLATE.
    			Without an argument all are set, and additionally
    			$LANG is set.
    			If available the LC_NUMERIC value will always be set
    			to "C", so that floating point numbers use '.' as the
    			decimal point.
    			This will make a difference for items that depend on
    			the language (some messages, time and date format).
    			Not fully supported on all systems
    			If this fails there will be an error message.  If it
    			succeeds there is no message.  Example:
    				:language
    				Current language: C
    				:language de_DE.ISO_8859-1
    				:language mes
    				Current messages language: de_DE.ISO_8859-1
    				:lang mes en

    MS-WINDOWS MESSAGE TRANSLATIONS				*win32-gettext*

    If you used the self-installing .exe file, message translations should work
    already.  Otherwise get the libintl.dll file if you don't have it yet:

    	http://sourceforge.net/projects/gettext
    Or:
    	https://mlocati.github.io/gettext-iconv-windows/

    This also contains tools xgettext, msgformat and others.

    libintl.dll should be placed in same directory as (g)vim.exe, or one of the
    directories listed in the PATH environment value.  Vim also looks for the
    alternate names "libintl-8.dll" and "intl.dll".

    Message files (vim.mo) have to be placed in "$VIMRUNTIME/lang/xx/LC_MESSAGES",
    where "xx" is the abbreviation of the language (mostly two letters).

    If you write your own translations you need to generate the .po file and
    convert it to a .mo file.  You need to get the source distribution and read
    the file "src/po/README.txt".

    To overrule the automatic choice of the language, set the $LANG variable to
    the language of your choice.  use "en" to disable translations.

      :let $LANG = 'ja'

    (text for Windows by Muraoka Taro)

    ==============================================================================

    2. Menus						*multilang-menus*

    See |45.2| for the basics, esp. using 'langmenu'.

    Note that if changes have been made to the menus after the translation was
    done, some of the menus may be shown in English.  Please try contacting the
    maintainer of the translation and ask him to update it.  You can find the
    name and e-mail address of the translator in
    "$VIMRUNTIME/lang/menu_<lang>.vim".

    To set the font (or fontset) to use for the menus, use the |:highlight|
    command.  Example:

    	:highlight Menu font=k12,r12

    ALIAS LOCALE NAMES

    Unfortunately, the locale names are different on various systems, even though
    they are for the same language and encoding.  If you do not get the menu
    translations you expected, check the output of this command:

    	echo v:lang

    Now check the "$VIMRUNTIME/lang" directory for menu translation files that use
    a similar language.  A difference in a "-" being a "_" already causes a file
    not to be found!  Another common difference to watch out for is "iso8859-1"
    versus "iso_8859-1".  Fortunately Vim makes all names lowercase, thus you
    don't have to worry about case differences.  Spaces are changed to
    underscores, to avoid having to escape them.

    If you find a menu translation file for your language with a different name,
    create a file in your own runtime directory to load that one.  The name of
    that file could be:

    	~/.vim/lang/menu_<v:lang>.vim

    Check the 'runtimepath' option for directories which are searched.  In that
    file put a command to load the menu file with the other name:

    	runtime lang/menu_<other_lang>.vim

    TRANSLATING MENUS

    If you want to do your own translations, you can use the |:menutrans| command,
    explained below.  It is recommended to put the translations for one language
    in a Vim script.  For a language that has no translation yet, please consider
    becoming the maintainer and make your translations available to all Vim users.
    Send an e-mail to the Vim maintainer <maintainer@vim.org>.

    					*:menut* *:menutrans* *:menutranslate*
    :menut[ranslate] clear
    			Clear all menu translations.

    :menut[ranslate] {english} {mylang}
    			Translate menu name {english} to {mylang}.  All
    			special characters like "&" and "<Tab>" need to be
    			included.  Spaces and dots need to be escaped with a
    			backslash, just like in other |:menu| commands.
    			Case in {english} is ignored.

    See the $VIMRUNTIME/lang directory for examples.

    To try out your translations you first have to remove all menus.  This is how
    you can do it without restarting Vim:
    	:source $VIMRUNTIME/delmenu.vim
    	:source <your-new-menu-file>
    	:source $VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim

    Each part of a menu path is translated separately.  The result is that when
    "Help" is translated to "Hilfe" and "Overview" to "Überblick" then
    "Help.Overview" will be translated to "Hilfe.Überblick".

    ==============================================================================

    3. Scripts						*multilang-scripts*

    In Vim scripts you can use the |v:lang| variable to get the current language
    (locale).  The default value is "C" or comes from the $LANG environment
    variable.

    The following example shows how this variable is used in a simple way, to make
    a message adapt to language preferences of the user,

    	:if v:lang =~ "de_DE"
    	:  echo "Guten Morgen"
    	:else
    	:  echo "Good morning"
    	:endif

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