I don’t want to get…

Welcome to the official blog of the translator team for the WordPress open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project. This is where we discuss all things related to translating WordPress. Follow our progress for general updates, status reports, and debates.

We’d love for you to help out!

Translate WordPress

You can help translate WordPress to your language by logging in to the translation platform with your WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ account and suggesting translations (more details).

Want to help in managing and validating translations? Get in touch with the existing language team and follow the glossaries & style guides if the team has them. Also join your language team’ internal communication channels.

Don’t see your language? You can request support for it.

Weekly Meetings

We have meetings every week on Slack in polyglots (the schedule is on the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. of this page). You are also welcome to ask questions on the same channel at any time!

Posting here

In order to post to this site, you will need to log in with your wordpress.org account. Your first post may take a while to show up, as it is moderated. Please follow our tag policy when posting.

#polyglots

I don’t want to get into the argument about whether these localizations should exist at all, but definitely for the purposes of geo-redirecting people to sub-domains of WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, we should immediately retire en-au, en-ca, en-nz, en-pirate?, en-za, en-gb. The canonical links and structure for plugins, themes, etc on WordPress.org in English should be just be WordPress.org. Having these URLs show up randomly depending on what country people Googled something in is bizarre.

tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn “Tobi” Fjellner) 11:18 pm on September 29, 2025

As far as I know, we don’t do any geo-redirection on .org. If the page you asked for exists, you’ll get that page.

The only thing would be: If your browser settings suggest readiness to read any alternative language, then some pages may include a hint about the possibility to find that theme/pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party/etc. in some other of your preferred languages, or about the possibility to contribute towards a translation.

The MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team can tell you more about how that language hint functions. From the Polyglots’ team, I’d just like to comment that this subtle banner helps a lot in recruiting new translation contributors.

Where geo-guessing IS a thing, though, is with search engines of various types, something that is harder for us to control.

But I don’t think we should remove proper, needed localesLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/ just to hide them from Google. They do serve their purpose, as witnessed by the quite long glossary #en_GB uses and their detailed style guide to adjust for many differences.

Even the “Pirate” localeLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/ has its role as a test-ground for i18nInternationalization Internationalization (sometimes shortened to I18N , meaning “I - eighteen letters -N”) is the process of planning and implementing products and services so that they can easily be adapted to specific local languages and cultures, a process called localization. This is the process of making software translatable. Information about Internationalization for developers can be found in the Developer’s handbooks.-meta stuff. And I don’t think Pirate ranks high enough on any search platform to become a nuisance, anyway.
Gary Jones 7:48 am on September 30, 2025

The canonical links and structure for plugins, themes, etc on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ in English should be just be WordPress.org.

The readmes for plugins and themes (and items in the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. pattern directory, etc.) are all translatable into the English variants, so they need to be displayed somewhere. It’s a much nicer experience for someone who speaks non-US English to read descriptions that don’t appear to have typos (or completely different words) in them. For instance, default WooCommerce talks about the “shopping cart experience”, but en_GB WooCommerce references the “shopping basket experience”. There is value in keeping these localeLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/-specific pages.
Mary Hubbard 1:17 pm on September 30, 2025

I understand that it could feel like a jump with new subdomains. If this is for simplicity sake, with fewer moving parts, or perhaps long term support implications I can see why we would do this.

Are we more concerned about the experience of the end user or about the implications of SEO hygiene?
- tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn “Tobi” Fjellner) 7:52 pm on September 30, 2025
  
  I would recommend against using “canonical” to link to one “main” English version.
  
  Reasons:
  1. For English-speaking users outside of US, the localized versions are the correct ones. We must allow these subdomains to be indexed, too. Google should link to these when a user’s language settings or location indicate that they would be a better option than the “main global” homepage.
  2. All English localesLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/ are correctly tagged with htmlHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. lang=”en-ZA” (etc.) so Google and other search engines should be able to sort this out correctly.
  3. There are special pages and blog entries on these domains that don’t exist on the main WordPress domain. If we do some “canonical” stuff, we might accidentally link to non-existing content.
  
  What we should do, though:
  Pages that exist in many different language versions (including various versions of English) should be referenced between each other, using hreflang and/or linking between sitemaps.
Johannes Jülg 5:41 pm on October 1, 2025

If we include the team pages for de_ch and de_at (only a permission management issue) and add download buttons for formal/informal, de_at, and de_ch, it shouldn’t be a big issue for de_at and de_ch. Readmes for plugins/themes and wp.org aren’t fully translated, and de_ch links to de.wp.org. But that’s a step they have to decide for themselves.

And we need a readme fallback in WordPress to specific localesLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/ and not to en_us!

Translate WordPress

Weekly Meetings

Posting here

Share this:

Site resources