Ubuntu – Language Support has an unwanted Chinese language option

language-support

When I open System Settings and open the Language Support dialog, there is an option in the list, for (I think) Chinese. As far as I can recall I have never installed this language myself.

The Language Support dialog

Searching for language-pack in Synaptic, the following packages are listed as installed: language-pack-en, language-pack-en-base, language-pack-gnome-en and language-pack-gnome-en-base. If I click the Installed Languages button in the Language Support dialog, I do not see Chinese listed as installed: only English has a checkmark.

Is this additional language taking up space? How can I remove it?

Here is the output of locate language-pack:

% locate language-pack
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en-base
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en-base
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en-base/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-en-base/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en-base/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-gnome-en-base/copyright
/usr/share/locales/install-language-pack
/usr/share/locales/remove-language-pack
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en-base_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en-base_1%3a12.04+20111229_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-en_1%3a12.04+20120202_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en-base_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en-base_1%3a12.04+20111229_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en_1%3a11.10+20120103_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/language-pack-gnome-en_1%3a12.04+20120202_all.deb
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-en.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-fr-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-fr-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/language-pack-gnome-en.md5sums

And here is the output of ls /usr/share/locale-langpack:

% ls /usr/share/locale-langpack 
en     en@boldquot  en_GB  en@quot  en_US
en_AU  en_CA        en_NZ  en@shaw  en_US@piglatin

Best Answer

I had the same problem (Chinese showing up in lists and once even as the system language) and this command solved it:

sudo locale-gen --purge
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