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Language

The language for a Siebel application can mean multiple things, and may involve different system or application elements. These elements are independent from the language of the data that the user enters in the Siebel Database. You must install seed data according to how you want to use languages in the Siebel applications.

• The primary language (sometimes called the base language) is the first language installed for this Siebel installation.
• The active language is the language in effect for an individual user's session and the language of user interface elements, including multilingual lists of values (MLOVs). This language is also used for system messages (if the resource language is not separately defined).

  For a Siebel Web Client session, the language is determined by the Application Object Manager (AOM) component invoked, and cannot be changed by the user—except by logging into a different language-specific AOM. For the Mobile or Developer Web Client, the user can explicitly specify the language to use for a given session.

• The resource language, if it is defined, is used as the default language for system messages.

Siebel Language Packs install the language-specific run-time environment on the Siebel Server: repository (SRF) files, DLLs, configuration (CFG) files, reports, error messages, help files, and so on. Installing languages on the Siebel Database loads language-specific seed data.

The languages allowed in data are constrained only by the character encoding of the database platform. For example, although a user may be using a U.S. English version of a Siebel application installed with a Western European code page database, the user can enter or view contact data in French, because all French characters are representable in the Western European code page.

With a Unicode code page, and appropriate fonts locally installed, languages using dissimilar character sets, such as French and Japanese, may be used together.

Language codes used by Siebel applications use a three-letter code, such as ENU for U.S. English, FRA for French, THA for Thai, and so on. Using language codes with only two characters does not work and is not supported.

See also About Parameters for Language and Locale and Creating Language and Locale Records.