Meaning – The term Internationalization, refers to the process of producing a product that is independent of any particular language, script, culture, and coded character set. Strictly speaking, an internationalized product is not usable in any region of the world until it is localized to a specific region. Once a product has been internationalized, it can be localized for a specific language, script, culture, and coded character set with minimal expense and effort. The word internationalization is sometimes abbreviated as I18N; this notation is used because there are 18 letters between the first letter I and the last letter N in the word internationalization.
Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting internationalized software for a specific region or language by translating text and adding locale-specific components.
Example of usage – “Microsoft defines internationalization as a combination of world-readiness and localization. World-readiness is a developer task, which enables a product to be used with multiple scripts and cultures (globalization) and separating user interface resources in a localizable format.”
