Irish language (Gaeilge) as iPhone language removed

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Irish language (Gaeilge) as iPhone language removed

Until a few months ago, when I started feeling the limits of my vocabulary when planning a holiday on AirBnB and forgot to change it back, my iPhone language was Irish, most first-party App names were in Irish as were many settings. I tried to change it back to Irish recently, and the option is gone. A recent answer to a similar question said that Apple never offered this. I realise I could be having Mandela effect feelings about the preferred language order, which does include Irish, and leaves e.g. AirBnB and my lock screen date in Irish, but it doesn't translate reminders and calendar which I absolutely remember having the dates in Irish before.

It seems Microsoft recently dropped support for Irish and other minority languages for UX consistency, so this may have happened here with first-party app support, but I'm just wondering if I can get some clearer answers on this. Makes me sad to not be able to have at least some bits of my phone in Irish.

Posted on Dec 27, 2021 11:44 AM

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Answer 1

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,084 points

Dec 27, 2021 5:52 PM in response to xaerx

xaerx wrote: Have they maybe changed the structure of the menu? I don't remember the breakdown of one setting for 'iPhone Language' and then a separate ranked list of preferred languages. I remember previously only having one language setting, and just knowing that if I set my language to Irish that not everything would be in Irish.

You may be right about that. MacOS still has that kind of menu, you can put Irish at the top and English as second. I think that sometime in the past this would produce a Calendar app with Irish language month and day names. But I just checked and that does not work in Catalina or Monterey, it stays in English.

In MacOS, having Irish at the top should make every app that has an Irish localization display that way. But with iOS it's not clear this will happen when Irish is only at the top of the "preferred" list. It seems like it should, otherwise there's no point. If you find Irish localizations of 3rd party apps are not showing when Gaeilge is as high as it can get, it's worth complaining to Apple via

http://www.apple.com/feedback

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,084 points

Dec 27, 2021 2:20 PM in response to xaerx

I follow language things pretty closely, and to my knowledge Apple has never offered Irish as the language of menus or dialogues or Apple app names or iOS Settings names. 3rd party apps and their settings might have.

Like you I do seem to remember you should be able to have dates. Will have a look...

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Answer 3

xaerx Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 27, 2021 2:37 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Have they maybe changed the structure of the menu? I don't remember the breakdown of one setting for 'iPhone Language' and then a separate ranked list of preferred languages. I remember previously only having one language setting, and just knowing that if I set my language to Irish that not everything would be in Irish.

I wonder have they split it out so the list still allows for language selection but the 'iPhone Language' option is now only for languages with full firmware support.

I think you're probably right about dialogues and app names, but I definitely think there was at least the dates in first-party apps, and I really thought at least some menu things were, but I could just be getting confused with other systems with half-completed Irish support although iOS was the main one I've used, I don't really have other devices in Irish.

Currently the dates are in Irish on my lock screen and in Photos, and the icon for Calendar has the day of the week in Irish, but Calendar itself and Reminders don't. When I go into their respective 'preferred language' settings, it doesn't offer me Irish as a language, and has English (UK) as my 'default'.

With regard to other changes, I definitely also remember getting tripped up from not remembering that Google's 'Translate' was now 'Aistriúcháin' and other apps having different names, which are now in English, but I don't know how third-party app titles interact with this system.

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Irish language (Gaeilge) as iPhone language removed

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