What is the language field for in a knowledge article?

[Alessandro Idro]

I see this field in the article, but unsure exactly what it does, what is the purpose of this?

Language

Language in which you are creating the article. The list is populated based on the languages enabled for the selected knowledge base.

[Sagar Pagar]

Hi,

It will allow users to create articles only for selected languages. Select the languages you want enabled at a knowledge base level. 

Refer docs to enable languages for kb - Enable languages for a knowledge base

Feel free to mark helpful and correct!

Thanks,

Sagatr Pagar

[Alessandro Idro]

But what is it for? I also found that definition before I posted my question. What is this field used for? It doesn't drive which language you see in the portal. I created two articles one in Spanish and one in English. As a user with the language picked as English, the user was able to see both articles. 

So what is this field for? Is it just for reporting?

[Leri Andrews · Accepted solution]

It drives the ability to choose article translations not your portal language. If I want to have a translation in Spanish I create a translated version which is now a 'child' of the English 'parent'.  When I view the English article in portal I now have an option to see available translations in a drop-down.  You can get the portal to auto-switch to a users preferred language if a translation is available but it is not out-of-the-box functionality (or at least it didn't used to be). 

[Alessandro Idro]

Got it, thank you!