IBM i series Handbook page 518

Operating System/400 (5722-SS1)
Note: Not all licensed programs are translated into all languages, nor are all national
language versions available from all program release support centers.
Information about Secondary National Languages
The national language in which licensed programs are ordered is considered the primary
national language. Any other languages are secondary languages. Users can switch among
the languages as necessary. Multiple NLVs can be installed on a single iSeries server.
Regardless of the NLV, all system commands are in US English. Therefore, a single set of
system commands works in all national language environments.
Universal Coded Character Set Support
Many customers do business in a worldwide environment. It is too costly and time consuming
to redesign and rewrite an application to support users in another national language or
culture. These applications require the ability to store and process character data from more
that one national language.
For example, a database file may need to contain customer names in English, German,
Greek, Arabic, Japanese, and Thai characters. This capability must be available in a
client/server environment and in a network of heterogeneous systems that exchanges
character data via customer applications.
The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) is an emerging global character encoding,
developed jointly by the industry (UNICODE 1.1) and the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO). ISO/IEC 10646-1 defines a code page (UCS-2) encompassing the
characters used by all currently significant languages, a rich set of scientific and publishing
symbols, and a variety of script languages. This common code page spans the character sets
of many languages. It can ease application development and management issues historically
found in multiple code page system environments and networks. This capability is provided in
OS/400 with the UCS2 Level 1 support for database to permit characters of any national
language to "coexist" in database files.
Locale Support of Cultural Values
"Cultural values" change from one national language to another. Examples of cultural values
are:
• Date and time format
• Currency symbol
• Sort (collating) sequence
Locale support allows for the creation, deletion, and access of locale-based information.
C-applications can access locale information via C-runtime functions. Non-C applications can
retrieve locale information via APIs. OS/400 simplifies the tasks that an application must
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