*mlang.txt*     Nvim


		  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|.

                                      Type |gO| to see the table of contents.

==============================================================================
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.
			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
<

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