Internationalization

The process of designing and developing software, websites, or applications so that they can be adapted to different languages, regions, and cultural conventions without requiring engineering changes. Internationalization involves architectural decisions such as supporting Unicode character encoding, separating translatable text from code using resource bundles, designing flexible layouts that accommodate text expansion or right-to-left scripts, and handling locale-specific data formats for dates, numbers, and currencies. In accessibility, internationalization is essential because people with disabilities exist in every language community, and accessible content must reach users in their native language to be truly useful. The abbreviation i18n comes from the 18 letters between the "i" and "n" in "internationalization."