English vs. English (United States)

[Deleted]

What is the difference between English and English (United States)?  Why is Edge by default displayed in English rather than English (United States)?  Why can't I change it to display in English (United States)?

Thanks,

Bill

[#2]

Hi @Deleted, the languages you see are based on the tags that they have, where English (United States) is more specific than English.  You can learn more about these standards here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF_language_tag.  To change your preferred language you can click on the menu (...) at the right edge and select Move Up or Move Down as appropriate.

[#3]

@Elliot Kirk 

Thanks for the response, but you didn't actually answer my questions.  I read the wiki article, but it really didn't answer them either.

I do have English (United States) first in the list in the Edge Settings as that is my preferred language.  Despite this, it says Edge is displayed in English.  If English (United States) is listed first, why isn't Edge displayed in English (United States).  Why can't I change it to display in English (United States)?  If I click on the 3 dots to the right the option "Display Microsoft Edge in this language" is grayed out.  Why?

[#4]

@Deleted 

Why can't I change it to display in English (United States)?  

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Because you're comparing apples and oranges. The list on the Languages settings page allows you to specify your preferred browsing languages. If EN-US is top of your list, then a German site offering a page in English would serve you the English version. Many sites will not differentiate between different flavours of the same language, so to prevent problems when your browser asks for a page in, say, EN-CA, the EN version will be served so long as English is a preferred language.

The Edge display language is the language of the user interface - labels, buttons, menus and so on. It would be a phenomenal task to make this UI available in all of the 150-odd languages that Windows boasts of, so I suspect we'll have to make do with a subset. I'm sure more display languages will be available in due course, but I doubt there's any pressing need for regional variants (e.g. EN-GB, EN-AU, EN-CA as well as EN-US).

Browsing language, spell check and browser UI language can all be different, and the choices available for each one will vary. 

[#5]

@Noel Burgess 

Thanks for the explanation.  

Bill

[#6]

You did a great job at explaining. I too had a saga of understanding these languages, and how they're configured. 

See, Windows comes in two English languages; US or GB. I usually install US version because I don't mind UI being in English(US), as long as I get English(Canada) for my typing(spell check) need. My keyboard has Canadian French keys too, but I rarely use it. And then, there's confusion with apps. We know that there's no such thing as English(Canada) app language. It's basically English-GB language pack which I hate Windows store to install on my machine. Microsoft should get more clear about languages and their configuration. With every new product, they mess it up and add more confusion. English is actually English(US) as I tested setting it for my spell check, and wrong Canadian spellings were not detected. I had to add (English Canada), which now becomes a third language. Windows has two languages English (United States), and English (Canada), so why the browser oddly different? Keep it two same as the OS; English(United States) for display, and English(Canada) for spellcheck purposes.