The language in Simple English Wikipedia is defined ($wgLanguageCode) as "simple", but because this language is not exist, all the messages fall back to English (except the changed ones). It's an ugly workaround and the configuration ($wgLanguageCode) should be changed into "en" in simple.wikipedia.org. I don't think it will break the settings: the custom messages ("change this page" instead of "edit", "show any page" instead of "random page", etc.) *will* remain, because they are defined in MediaWiki namespace. However, the "lang" and "xml:lang" attributes will be "en" as well if $wgLangaugeCode="en".
So finally, we should just apply:
- $wgLanguageCode = "simple"; + $wgLanguageCode = "en";
in LocalSettings.php of simple.wikipedia.org to fix the problem there, and it *won't* break any messages. However, I don't understand the problem in Chinese Wikipedia.
Brion Vibber wrote:
Shinjiman wrote:
As this, we still don't have any values that defines the lang attribute in the HTML tag, but currently defined by the $wgContLanguageCode. However, if Brion (or any developers having the shell access) changed the $wgContLanguageCode from "simple" into "en" in the LocalSettings.php at simple, it can correct the mislabelled tag. But this change is going to *break up* the user language settings to using the English messages instead of Simple English messages,
No it won't. There is no "simple English" language, it's just English. The defined user interface messages on the wiki will be shown when English is selected.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)