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Accepted
Dylan McCall
Asked: 2012-02-04 22:02:45 +0800 CST

Language Support has an unwanted Chinese language option

  • 772

When I open System Settings and open the Language Support dialog, there is an option in the list, for (I think) Chinese. As far as I can recall I have never installed this language myself.

The Language Support dialog

Searching for language-pack in Synaptic, the following packages are listed as installed: language-pack-en, language-pack-en-base, language-pack-gnome-en and language-pack-gnome-en-base. If I click the Installed Languages button in the Language Support dialog, I do not see Chinese listed as installed: only English has a checkmark.

Is this additional language taking up space? How can I remove it?

Here is the output of locate language-pack:

% locate language-pack
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en-base
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en-base
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en-base/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en-base/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en-base/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en-base/copyright
/usr/share/locales/install-language-pack
/usr/share/locales/remove-language-pack
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en-base_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en-base_1%3a12.04+20111229_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en_1%3a12.04+20120202_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en-base_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en-base_1%3a12.04+20111229_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en_1%3a12.04+20120202_all.deb
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-fr-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-fr-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en.md5sums

And here is the output of ls /usr/share/locale-langpack:

% ls /usr/share/locale-langpack 
en     en@boldquot  en_GB  en@quot  en_US
en_AU  en_CA        en_NZ  en@shaw  en_US@piglatin
language-support

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I had the same problem (Chinese showing up in lists and once even as the system language) and this command solved it:

    sudo locale-gen --purge
    • 4

  2. As an extra package, it does take up some space. You can remove it by clicking on the 'Install / Remove Languages...' button.

    enter image description here

    Here, note that I have Tamil installed as one of my supported languages. To remove it, click on the above-mentioned button.

    enter image description here

    Then, untick the check box next to the language. After that, click on 'Apply Changes' and you would have removed all your unwanted languages.

    • 1

  3. It is caused by some conflicting configuration files. Following link may be useful. Look into post #3. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2050993

    • 1

  4. As 1.st language you probably see the Chinese and below that is English.

    Just click on English and drag it over the Chinese.

    You can see now how the "symbols language" fades out.

    Log out.

    • 0