Language != Country

Earlier today, James B. sent me a list of remarks about appTranslator, including this one :

Here are a few things I'dlike to see <...>: Being able to hide or disable a control between languages. For example, Spanish names don't have middle initials. They don't have a Social Security Number either. For the Spanish version, I would like to hide these fields.

Here's my reply :

Your remark about selectively hiding fields is interesting. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to make these changes in translations rather than in the code: What would happen if a spanish speaking american user wants to use your Spanish version ? He would need the social security field (and probably the middle initial as well). The reverse also exists : Let's say you provide English and Spanish. What happens to your Italian users. They will most likely use your apps in English. But they don't have social security numbers or middle initials. Or even simpler: what happens to Spaniards who don't realize there is a Spanish version of your app (e.g.: their Windows is in English hence your app starts in English).

I'm not sure it would be a good idea to bind language to country. Although it would probably be a good idea to use this relation to make some guesses.