Re: [Freedos-devel] Question about 3-letter language codes

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 09:15:32 -0700 


> On Oct 27, 2025, at 11:43 AM, Jose Senna via Freedos-devel 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Jerome Shidel said:
>> Does anyone object to using PB as the two 
>> letter language code for Portuguese-Brazil?
> 
>  The only objection I can think of is that in 
> Brazil we speak Portuguese. The difference
> is in display codepages and keyboard layouts.
> So, why not use "codepage" and "keyboard" 
> configuration options instead of "language"

While a language translation relies on having the correct codepage setting, the 
reverse is not true and they are not synonymous with each other. Numerous 
language use codepages 850 or 858. However, their languages are very different. 
Also, there are codepages above 999 that would require a 4 digit file extension.

Like country codes and regions, keyboard layouts are also separate. Since they 
are separate, there is nothing to prevent a user from configuring things as 
they wish. For example, you could live in Italy, using the Dutch language with 
a Swedish keyboard. 

>  This would be less confusing to users of 
> nonstandard keyboard/display combinations 
> and to those using the same combination for 
> more than one language (as I am doing now,
> typing English in an ABNT2 (Brazilian) 
> keyboard.
>  It would depart from Microsoft's DOS
> practice, but how important is this now ? 

While I have never used a version of MS-DOS not in English, my understanding is 
that it did not support changing the language of the installed system. 
Therefore, while you could possibly customize some aspects related to your 
needs, it did not support changing the language or having multiple translation 
files. You could only install for the language you wanted and that was that. 
So, being able to change languages through settings at a later date already 
deviates from what was available with MS-DOS.




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