Top all-time · #3402
Flags are not languages
Personal blog · flagsarenotlanguages.com/blogdesignculture
Flags are not languages is a personal blog at flagsarenotlanguages.com about design and culture. Since 2013, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 23 times, most often “Why flags do not represent languages”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-04-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters repeatedly link this site as the standard reference against using national flags to represent languages, citing cases like countries with many languages and languages spread across many countries.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Why flags do not represent languages7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2017-04-23
- Why flags do not represent languages3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-10-13
- Flags are not languages: A blog about designing global user experiences3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-01-31
- Flags Are Not Languages2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-03-15
- Flags are not languages2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-09-27
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-09-17
What Hacker News says?
> Also, it's a bad practice to associate flags with languages There's even a website for this issue http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-re...
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “Open-Sourcing our Firmware”Submitted Flags Are Not Languages as a story · 109 points
HN discussionhttps://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: Glossarie – a new, immersive way to learn a language”Submitted Why flags do not represent languages as a story · 3 points
HN discussionUsing flags for language isn't really a great pattern. It kind of works if you only support a few languages, but when you support a lot you get into tough issues where many flags relate to a single language and many languages relate to a single flag. http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-re...
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “Stop Guessing Languages Based on IP Address”Submitted Why flags do not represent languages as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-r...
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “Some flag emojis aren’t working on Chrome on Windows”Submitted Flags are not languages as a story · 2 points
HN discussionPlease don't use flags for disambiguating languages. ( http://flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-repres... ) is a starting point. Basically - some languages are spoken in more than one country (eg. English in US, Britain, Australia, India) - some countries have more than one language spoken in them (eg. see any large country) - you will end up accidentally annoying people when you accidentally get it wro…
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows”Submitted Why flags do not represent languages as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYour site is great (and minimalist) -- honestly, really really very good job. One note: in general there's a UX recommendation not to use flags when you mean languages. http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/ I'm not exactly sure the best way to solve this for your blog. Maybe something like adding alt-text to indicate "German Language" and adding a parenthetical to the end of titles "(German)" or something?
Comment linking /blog/
on “Design of This Website (2021)”Submitted Flags are not languages: A blog about designing global user experiences as a story · 1 points
HN discussionPlease don't. Flags are not languages. ( http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/ ) There are many languages which cannot be clearly distinguished with a flag icon -- for example, there are dozens of languages which could be represented by an Indian flag (Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Urdu...), and some languages which don't have any clear flag, or whose flag could be politically complicated to display (like Catalan, Romani,…
Comment linking /
on “What they don’t tell you when you translate your app”Submitted Why flags do not represent languages as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIn fact, the first external link in TFA is to a whole website [ http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-re... ] apparently dedicated to this.
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “What they don’t tell you when you translate your app”Submitted Flags are not languages as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis is nice. Though it’s worth pointing out to UX folks that flags are not languages. http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-re...
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “GDPR made searchable by Algolia”The flag doesn't work for the billion people of India. We are massively multilingual; we have 22 official languages. Google.co.in is offered in 9 of those 22 languages -- each one with its own unique script, which are mutually un-intelligible. One Indian flag for all languages? No, thanks. Look at the confusion caused by the Metropolitan Police website [1]. If you can afford two pop-up lists, the approach of Lufthan…
Comment linking /blog/2011/09/the-metropolitan-police-16-languages-12-flags/
on “Accept my accept-language”http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/
Comment linking /
on “Low-code online store builder”Flags are not languages: http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-re... Arguably it makes a little more sense for keyboard layouts, but even then. Edit: also with alternative layouts. Is Dvorak English? If you want you can create your own keyboard layout with Ukulele https://software.sil.org/ukelele/ (or edit an existing one) and change the icon to any image.
Comment linking /blog/why-flags-do-not-represent-language/
on “Apple Removes Flag Icons in Monterey 12.4”Some software and websites show (or showed) a little country flag for each language. For example, German would get the flag of Germany. Don't do this. It is flawed for so many reasons... Here's a whole blog about this, by someone who cares about it more than me: https://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/
Comment linking /blog/
on “Ask HN: Are there symbols for languages like symbols for currencies?”I think this is brilliant and something that more websites should be using, especially instead of the nonsense flags. http://flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/
Comment linking /blog/
on “Wikipedia now uses the Autonym Font for Language Names”There's a whole website dedicated to this complaint: https://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/
Comment linking /
on “How HTTPS Works”
