| Language Localisation |
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Many languages, especially World Languages with a large number of native speakers, have spread geographically and are nowadays used in many countries and regions. Thus, different national varieties of these languages have evolved. Linguistic differences include pronunciation, Spelling conventions and grammatical patterns. It is important for companies to take such differences into account, for example, when creating websites for specific regional markets. LANGUAGES English language localisation The two largest countries (in population) where English is spoken natively are the United States and the United Kingdom . There are numerous differences between American English and British English —spelling conventions (''colour'', ''centre'', ''programme'', ''localisation'' vs ''color'', ''center'', ''program'', ''localization''), pronunciation, words with different meanings, vocabulary and slightly different grammar patterns particularly in the use of tenses. Localisation in this context usually refers to creating country-specific websites or publishing different editions of a book. For example, it is very common for books by British authors to be edited for the U.S. market. U.S. editions are often co-published in Canada, while UK editions are often co-published in Australia. English language localisation has become very common for open source software, where users can choose between different Locale s. Spanish language localisation In addition to Spain , there are many other Spanish-speaking countries like Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. Due to the influence of the Real Academia Española , spelling has been standardised. However, there are many variations in pronunciation and the usage of words. Argentinian Spanish (''es-AR'') is often used as a typical Latin American variety of Spanish. Mexican Spanish serves as a model for the Spanish spoken in the United States. Portuguese language localisation The differences between Portuguese from Portugal (called European Portuguese ) and Brazilian Portuguese include pronunciation, spelling conventions, grammar and usage. Compared with Spanish and English varieties, the differences are much larger. Books from Brazilian authors like Paulo Coelho are heavily edited for the Portuguese market. Chinese language localisation Chinese encompasses a large number of dialects. The standard dialect ( and Traditional Chinese. Simplified characters are primarily used in Mainland China, traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. LANGUAGE TAGS AND CODES Language Tag s can be used to indicate different national varieties of a language. There is one primary subtag that identifies the language (e.g. "en") and an optional subtag in capital letters that specifies the national variety (e.g. "GB"). The subtags are linked with a hyphen (although in some contexts it's necessary to substitute this with an underscore List of currently supported locales by the gnu libc library. ). Language Tag and Code Examples
Language codes specified in ISO 639-2 use a three-letter nomenclature to identify each language, such as eng for English, or tvl for Tuvalu . However, these are not valid as language tags if the language also has two-letter code in ISO 639-1 . NOTES AND REFERENCES SEE ALSO
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