How do I change the language via a terminal?

Question

Using system settings I changed my language to Arabic and deleted the English language from the settings. Then the computer lagged and it logged out - now I can't log back in because the login is in Arabic.

So is there a way to default my language via terminal, default the login password language, or login via terminal which is still in English. I only have access to guest and a terminal.

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I changed the pasword to something that could be translated into arabic http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword - then loged in and used system settings to default.

Answer 1

Edit two files:

1. sudoedit /etc/default/locale:

   LANG="en_US"
   LANGUAGE="en_US:en"
   

2. sudoedit ~/.pam_environment:

   LANG=en_US
   LANGUAGE=en_US
   

Logout and Login or Reboot.

Answer 2

In order to get back to English, I had to change my locale in 3 places:

1. /etc/default/locale

   by running this command:

   $ sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE= LC_MESSAGES= LC_COLLATE= LC_CTYPE=
   

2. ~/.config/plasma-localerc and ~/.config/plasma-locale-settings.sh

   By going to my KDE settings / Regional Settings / Language

And reboot.

Answer 3

You can also do change the system language interactively using dpkg-reconfigure:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

and follow the steps on the next screens.

After that, logout/login again and/or reboot.