Fallback languages are sort of "back-up" languages. For example, language AA
has language BB as fallback. So if a message doesn't exist in AA, it uses
the message from BB. If that doesn't exist, then it will use the message
from en. (However, I think that if language BB has a fallback, it might use
that instead. So you have language CC as well. And that can in theory go on
through all languages, though that's not likely at all. Not sure about that
though.)
So we have the following cases:
en: the global fallback language
xx: any fallback language. All languages can have one, except for English.
AA: the language of a wiki
BB: a language set in a user's settings
CC: a language set by ?uselang=
So the order if a message doesn't exist in a given language is the
following:
Case 1: Default, on a non-English wiki:
AA
AA-xx
en
Case 2: If a user has a different language in their settings:
BB
BB-xx
en
Case 3: If a different language is set by ?uselang=
CC
CC-xx
en
For MediaWiki:message/yy, I believe that is the same, but I have not tested
it. Also, I believe there is a bug about this, for cases 2 and 3, that it
should fall back to AA instead of en. I don't know its number though.
2008/3/26, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com>om>:
On 26/03/2008, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi,
As far as I understand it, for an anonymous user the message is first
the
language of the Wiki, then the fall back language
for that language and
then
English.
What does "fall back language for that language" mean? Are you
referring to getting messages from MediaWiki: pages or MessagesXX.php
files?
And what happens when the uselang=XX parameter it used in the URL?
which was my original question.
thanks
Brianna
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