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What is the difference between \setdefaultlanguage vs \setmainlanguage? I have seen either one and also both used with polyglossia. I am confused as to which one I should use in my document.

thymaro
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  • Have you read the polyglossia documentation (the section about both commands)? – TeXnician Oct 07 '17 at 07:21
  • I had not. I didn't know both were polyglossia-commands. It states: You can determine the default language by means of the command: \setdefaultlanguage[⟨options⟩]{lang} (or equivalently \setmainlanguage). – thymaro Oct 07 '17 at 09:20
  • Yes, it is. What is the correct procedure for closing? I don't have a 'close' option anywhere. Might be a privileges issue, though. – thymaro Oct 07 '17 at 09:42
  • What flag did you set? – thymaro Oct 07 '17 at 09:47
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    Since this question is on-topic and we don't have a duplicate, wouldn't it be better to provide an answer that can be found using google? – Johannes_B Oct 07 '17 at 12:40
  • @TeXnician There are several questions here that could be closed for the same reason, but they aren’t and shouldn’t. – egreg Oct 07 '17 at 12:45
  • @TeXnician would you care to provide an answer, then, since you were the one that found (or at least knew) the solution. In the end, even though the answer is fairly simple, some other guy living in the future might wonder about the same thing and also not know where to look right away. I hope it's not below you :D – thymaro Oct 07 '17 at 16:16
  • @TeXnician Reopened! – CarLaTeX Oct 07 '17 at 17:36
  • and also edited for conciseness. – thymaro Oct 07 '17 at 17:37

1 Answers1

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The manual states on page 4 that you can set the primary language using \setdefaultlanguage and that \setmainlanguage acts identically (is a synonym).

TeXnician
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    I'd also remark that, in my opinion, \setmainlanguage is semantically better. Also babel has main=<language> and fontspec has \setmainfont. – egreg Oct 07 '17 at 17:43