Command/setuplanguage

\setuplanguage

Summary

The command \setuplanguage adjusts the settings for a language.

Settings

\setuplanguage[...][...=...,...]
[...]	language default
default	language
state	start stop
date	see \currentdate
time	see \currenttime
patterns	file
lefthyphenmin	number
righthyphenmin	number
lefthyphenchar	number
righthyphenchar	number
setups	name
spacing	broad packed
font	auto name
bidi	left right l2r r2l
text	text
limittext	text
hyphen	text
compoundhyphen	text
leftcompoundhyphen	text
rightcompoundhyphen	text
leftquote	command
rightquote	command
leftquotation	command
rightquotation	command
leftspeech	command
rightspeech	command
leftsentence	command
middlespeech	command
rightsentence	command
midsentence	command
leftsubsentence	command
rightsubsentence	command
factor	yes no

Option	Explanation
language	an already defined language to be set up
patterns	The hyphenation patterns to use. file If you enter XX as value, ConTeXt loads lang-XX.lua from either the local folder or the tex/context/patterns/mkiv directory
lefthyphenmin	Minimal number of characters for prefixes. Default: e.g. 2 for English, 3 for German; beware the latter is different from LaTeX (2) and prevents many possible hyphenations!
righthyphenmin	Minimal number of characters for sufffixes. Default: e.g. 3 for English, 3 for German; beware the latter is different from LaTeX (2) and prevents many possible hyphenations!
hyphen	hyphen character
leftquote	left single quotation mark (for \quote)
rightquote	right single quotation mark (for \quote)
leftquotation	left double quotation mark (for \quotation)
rightquotation	right double quotation mark (for \quotation)

Examples

Example 1

\installlanguage
   [en]
   [spacing=broad,
    leftsentence=---,
    rightsentence=---,
    leftsubsentence=---,
    rightsubsentence=---,
    leftquote=\upperleftsinglesixquote,
    rightquote=\upperrightsingleninequote,
    leftquotation=\upperleftdoublesixquote,
    rightquotation=\upperrightdoubleninequote,
    date={month,\ ,day,{,\ },year},
    default=en,
    state=stop]

Suggestion for German with guillemets

\setbreakpoints[compound] % break at / and -
\setuplanguage[de][
  goodies={lang-de.llg}, % prevent wrong ligatures
  lefthyphenmin=2,
  righthyphenmin=2,
  leftquotation=»,
  rightquotation=«,
  leftquote=›,
  rightquote=‹,
]

German texts might benefit from setting a minimum word length for hyphenation (hyphenmin isn’t listed as an option for \setuplanguage).

See also

• \currentdate
• \currenttime
• lang-ini.mkiv
• \installlanguage
• \language
• \mainlanguage

Help from ConTeXt-Mailinglist/Forum

All issues with:

• \setuplanguage on the mailing list (all results)
• \setuplanguage on the mailing list (subject only)
• \setuplanguage on stack exchange
• \setuplanguage in ConTeXt's source