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Concept
Internationalization and localization
Summary
In computing, internationalization and localization (American) or internationalisation and localisation (British English), often abbreviated i18n and L10n, are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional peculiarities and technical requirements of a target locale.
Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting internationalized software for a specific region or language by translating text and adding locale-specific components.
Localization (which is potentially performed multiple times, for different locales) uses the infrastructure or flexibility provided by internationalization (which is ideally performed only once before localization, or as an integral part of ongoing development).
The terms are frequently abbreviated to the numeronyms i18n (where 18 stands for the number of letters between the first i and the last n in the word internationalization, a usage coined at Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1970s or 1980s) and L10n for localization, due to the length of the words. Some writers have the latter term capitalized to help distinguish the two.
Some companies, like IBM and Oracle, use the term globalization, g11n, for the combination of internationalization and localization.
Microsoft defines internationalization as a combination of world-readiness and localization. World-readiness is a developer task, which enables a product to be used with multiple scripts and cultures (globalization) and separates user interface resources in a localizable format (localizability, abbreviated to L12y).
Hewlett-Packard and HP-UX created a system called "National Language Support" or "Native Language Support" (NLS) to produce localizable software.
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