14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone Mango, the mobile operating system flavor that Redmond-based software giant Microsoft is set to bring to the market this fall, should come with support for more languages than the initial Windows Phone release included.
Mango will arrive on shelves with support for a number of no less than 22 languages, 5 of which were already present in the initial Windows Phone release.
“Although we still have a long way to go, Mango represents a sizeable step forward. At launch last year we supported 5 display languages: English (US and UK), French, German, Italian, and Spanish,” John McConnell, Principal Program Manager, Windows Phone Engineering, explains.
“In Mango, we’re adding 17 more: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.”
Moreover, Microsoft explains that the Zune software that Windows Phone devices need to connect to desktop PCs will be released with support for the same set of languages.
One thing that should be noted here is that not all of these languages will be listed as options on all handsets out there. Phone makers and wireless carriers are those who have the last word on this. Windows Phone will not come with the entire set of languages on all handsets out there for the simple fact that they would require a significant amount of space, which means less memory for other content, like music, photos, videos and the like.
“Also, an operator may not be able to support a particular language. For example, an operator in Norway might not feel comfortable supporting a phone with Hungarian. That said, many phones likely will have multiple display languages installed,” the company explains.
The software company also explains that new phone fonts were also included into the mix, for the East Asian languages: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
“These fonts come with the display language, so they’re only available if that language is present on your device. In addition, Mango now includes the Segoe UI Symbol font, which includes emoticons (Emoji), the new Indian rupee currency sign, and other useful symbols,” Microsoft added.