Localisation is a key component of TMS (Transportation Management System). Legacy system suffers from language localisation partly due to database design which forces the implementation to be encode in certain locales. Globalisation of application creates new solution architecture which default localisation. One of such settings is the configuration of languages and display text.
Language Perspective
One may think languages in system is pretty straightforward. However, to a system, English does not literally mean English? Due to complexity of languages, we seek some sanity to classify languages in system. One of such classification is ISO 639. However, this is not the standard adopted by system due to different computer organisations. For instance, Windows language encoding will vary from that in Linux. The application SME (Subject Matter Expert) must be familiar with language localisation encoding across various platforms.
Future Language localisation
At present and in near future, we will see NLP (Natural Language Processing) gaining popularity like Chatbot. There will be focus for system to localise naturally from user behaviour and geolocation. Translation are real time and ML (machine learning) driven. Data locales are no longer required as data can be stored as what it is and translated as such.
Danny Kwok 