Translate Switcher

[StanFromIreland]

I propose translating the languages in the switcher to their native name so that the translations are more accessible.

Examples of where this is done

un.org

un.org screenshot

google.com Uses both the local language name and the language's native name

google.com screenshot

cppreference.com

cppreference.com screenshot

[AA-Turner]

I'd support being able to translate the switcher, so e.g. French would be able to switch to Anglais, but I think that the English documentation should use the English names for languages -- especially given some languages use non-latin scripts.

There has been talk in the past of changing the switcher to use a dedicated 'choose language' page, which would give us more options here -- for example using the language's local name and 'native' name, i.e. French / Français. This pattern is used for example in the React documentation, sort-of in PHP (the documentation landing page requires choosing a language), and on the Apple website.

For contrast, Rust uses a switcher (though hidden at the bottom of the page), MDN has a switcher in native languages/scripts, and Go doesn't have translations on their official website.

A

[m-aciek]

The order now is sorted alphabetically by ISO codes of languages.

I would oppose to translate language names and sort alphabetically, because then the order of languages would be not stable, would change from language to language and that would create a bad user experience, in my opinion.

[m-aciek]

Probably sorting alphabetically by English names and translating would be optimal to keep the best user experience.

translating

As far as I'm concerned the switcher is not part of the theme, so we would need a new translation project/entrypoint (we can't integrate it easily with theme translations) unless would like to use some third party library that provides language name translations.

Sorting and translating seem somewhat separate, maybe we could create a separate issue for translating?

[StanFromIreland]

@m-aciek I will convert this issue to just translating. As it seems there is not much left to discuss about sorting.

[JulienPalard]

I don't get the idea of translating all the languages on the switcher. As an example: I can read french and english, but not chinese / japanese / korean. If I land on a CJK page, if the language switchers displays me a list like: 한국어 how would I be able to switch back to a language I understand?

[StanFromIreland]

@JulienPalard I'm not exactly sure what @AA-Turner meant but I think all languages should be in their native for example if I only speak Polish then I wouldn't know what "Polish" is as it is "Polski" in Polish.

[hugovk]

Yes, so we'd show something like this:

• English
• Français
• Polski

Or perhaps include English and the native name:

• English
• French / Français
• Polish / Polski

And use the same list for every translation's switcher.

[StanFromIreland]

@hugovk

From my understanding simply changing the names in the config should work, correct? I can research the names and open a PR.

[hugovk]

I expect so, but nothing's ever simple ;)

Which of the two options do people prefer: just native name, or English + native?

[StanFromIreland]

I think just native is fine. That is the standard most websites use (all alphabet and microsoft products for example)

[encukou]

IMO, readers need:

• the language they want to switch to. For this, we only need the native name -- why would switch to a language you don't know? A French-only reader does not need to switch to Anglais.
• where on the page the language switcher is -- especially if you don't know the language the page is in. Here, the English names help English speakers (and similar -- language names are more recognizable than most words). That's arguably most of our current user base, but not necessarily what we want to limit it to.

English names make alphabetical sorting possible, which makes finding your language easier if you know its English name. Which you most likely do even if you don't speak English.
So, I'd go for French / Français. (Note that the first name is in English, not “the language of the page”. And English comes first so that it's obvious that it's the sort key.)

---

From the examples in the first post, I like Google's icon:

If you land on a page in an unfamiliar language (or ever writing system), that's what you look for.

Wikipedia has one that's more correct (it's about writing, not geography) but less recognizable:

(UN's page works well but it's only a language switcher; cppreference looks like they just used a default.)

[StanFromIreland]

I like the icon idea but that would require work on the python-docs-theme side. And now we have three options! (Hopefully it won't extend any further.

1. EnglishName
2. vernacularName (EnglishName)
3. EnglishName (vernacularName)

GitHub does not have a voting method so I propose:
Thumbs Up for 1
Thumbs Down for 2
Smiling Face for 3