Language Supplementation
English is the only language that is complete in every SAP system. In general, any other languages are not completely translated. This means that some texts are only available in part – if at all – in other languages. Since missing texts can sometimes cause processes to crash, they need to be replaced somehow. The language supplementation function in the language transport tools enables you to do this.
The language supplementation function enables you to replace texts that do not exist in the target language with another language. This is known as the supplementation language. You should use English as the supplementation language. After you have supplemented your language, the text is available in the supplementation language key of the target language (such as French – FR).
You should perform language supplementation in the following cases:
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After installing an SAP system that contains languages other than English
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After upgrading an SAP system that contains languages other than English
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After importing Support Packages into a system that contains languages other than English
If you intend to set up your system for translation then you must not supplement the language for any target languages until translation is complete. If you supplement languages before translationg, the translation is made considerably more difficult because the translation tools are no longer able to differentiate between new and modified short text lines.
Technical Background
When you supplement a target language, any texts that do not exist in this language are replaced by texts from the supplementation language. This procedure copies the texts from the supplementation language to the appropriate locations of the target language texts. The same text in the supplementation language then exists with the language ID of the original language, and also with the language ID of the target language.
When the transport tool R3trans imports a transport request, it attempts to reconstruct the state that exists in the export system. If a text does not exist in the export system, but this text has been generated in your system (for example, by the language supplementation function), the transport request assigns a deletion flag to this text. This means that the supplemented text will be deleted in the target language. The text is then displayed in the original language, or the process crashes when the text with the target language ID is requested.
Transporting deletion flags can cause texts that you have already supplemented to disappear after an SAP Support Package is imported. You therefore need to perform a language supplementation after every Support Package import.
To reduce the amount of work required, we recommend that you define a strategy for importing Support Packages. Import a group of Support Packages into your system at regular intervals, for example, every three months. Then supplement your languages.
Example In your system, you have specified that language FR (French) is supplemented with language EN (English). There are 100 English translations of a program whose original language is DE (German) and for which 100 original German texts exist. However, only 50 of these texts have been translated into French. After importing this program into your system, you need to perform a language supplementation for FR. After language supplementation there are texts with the language identifier FR. Amongst these are the missing 50 texts in English.