Language Support has an unwanted Chinese language option

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.

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

4 Answers

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

As an extra package, it does take up some space. You can remove it by clicking on the 'Install / Remove Languages...' button.

Here, note that I have Tamil installed as one of my supported languages. To remove it, click on the above-mentioned button.

Then, untick the check box next to the language. After that, click on 'Apply Changes' and you would have removed all your unwanted languages.

It is caused by some conflicting configuration files. Following link may be useful. Look into post #3.

As 1.st language you probably see the Chinese and below that is English.

Just click on English and drag it over the Chinese.

You can see now how the "symbols language" fades out.

Log out.