Applying Browser Language Preferences

Web browsers enable users to specify a list of preferred languages for web content. PeopleTools uses the first language listed in the browser's preferred language list to determine the default language of the PeopleSoft sign-in page. If the user’s preferred language is not available, the default sign-in page is displayed in U.S. English (en-US).

In Microsoft Internet Explorer, the preferred language list is located in the Language Preference dialog box. You can add new languages using the Add dialog box.

The representation of languages in the browser’s preferred language list uses two- to five-character ISO standard locale codes made up of a language and country portion. For example, es represents Spanish and ar represents Argentina. A two-letter code represents only a language, without reference to a specific country or territory.

Other browsers have a similar dialog box that enables you to create an ordered list of language preferences.

For PeopleTools to display the sign-in page in the user’s preferred language as determined from browser settings, the ISO codes used by the browser are mapped to three-letter PeopleSoft language codes. The PeopleSoft system reads the PSLANGUAGES table to perform this mapping.

As delivered, the PeopleSoft system includes the following mappings:

The two-part ISO locale provides flexibility when languages vary from country to country. For example, the ISO code for French is fr. French is spoken in several countries, each with its own two-character country code, including France (FR), Belgium (BE), Canada (CA), and Switzerland (CH). The full locale code consists of a lowercase language code, an underscore, and an uppercase country code. So the code for Canadian French is fr_CA.

In many cases, the country distinction between languages is not relevant, or the PeopleSoft system does not deliver a country-specific translation. In these cases, many individual ISO locale codes may be mapped to a single PeopleSoft language code. For example, the PeopleSoft system delivers a Canadian French translation with the PeopleSoft language code of CFR. Therefore, the ISO locale of fr_CA is mapped to the PeopleSoft language code of CFR. However, the PeopleSoft system does not provide a Belgian French or Swiss French translation, so the fr_BE and fr_CH ISO locales fall back to fr, and are both mapped to the FRA PeopleSoft language code.