Help:Languages

''This page is about the use of languages on Wikia. For a list of Wikia sorted by language, please see Category:Languages. For a Wikia about language, see Language.''

Translations: English | Interlingua | Japanese | Chinese | Русский (Russian)

A Wikia can be in any language. Over 200 languages are supported, and many of those already have full interface translations available. You can choose to run multiple languages on one site, or request language sub-domains of one Wikia.

For Wikia with separate language versions, a portal can be created to serve as a disambiguation page between them. See, for example, the C++ Portal.

Default language for new wikis
When you fill out the request a new wiki form, you should specify the default language on the form.

Interface language
If you login, you can change your preferences to set the interface to a language of your choice. If you do not set this, or if you are not logged in, you will see the wiki in its default language.

See also Category:Wikia language files.

Language subdomains
If you create a new wiki, you can decide whether to use more than one language on the same wiki, or whether to create separate wikis for other languages. For example, the C++ Wikia has an English version at en.cpp.wikia.com and a Polish version at pl.cpp.wikia.com.

A multi-language portal for the C++ wiki exists at cpp.wikia.com with links to each language version.

There is no requirement that a wiki covering two or more languages needs the same title or URL.

You can also use the same requesting form to request the new language subdomains for an existing Wikia.

Language of the Central Wikia
At this time, the Central Wikia has the default language interface of English. However, pages are welcome in any language, and you can change the interface in your preferences. This Central Wikia aims to bring together all of the Wikia communities, so is used as a meeting point for all wikis in all languages.

Pages can be created or translated on this central wiki. For example, if you speak German, you can put a copy of the Main Page at Hauptseite. See translations for more details on translating the Central Wikia.

You can use interlanguage links to link between pages of different languages. Unlike interwiki links, these appear in an "other languages" section in the sidebar. For example, adding a link to FAQ/日本語 will place a link to FAQ/日本語 in the sidebar, with the link text "日本語". Any of the supported languages can be used in this way.

Mailing lists
The mailing lists currently use GNU Mailman which allows users to see the interface and automatic messages in the languages listed at list.org/i18n.html. As of August 2005, those languages are Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, American English, Estonian, Euskara, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. Messages posted to the lists can be in any language. The list of supported languages affects only the interface, not the message content.

Linguas 言語 Языки 語言