load_theme_textdomain() – Function | Developer.WordPress.org

Loads the theme’s translated strings.

Description

If the current locale exists as a .mo file in the theme’s root directory, it will be included in the translated strings by the $domain.

The .mo files must be named based on the locale exactly.

Parameters

$domainstringrequired: Text domain. Unique identifier for retrieving translated strings.
$pathstring|falseoptional: Path to the directory containing the .mo file.

Default:false

Return

bool True when textdomain is successfully loaded, false otherwise.

Source

 *
 * @since 2.9.0
 *
 * @param string       $domain Text domain. Unique identifier for retrieving translated strings.
 * @param string|false $path   Optional. Path to the directory containing the .mo file.
 *                             Default false.
 * @return bool True when the theme textdomain is successfully loaded, false otherwise.
 */
function load_child_theme_textdomain( $domain, $path = false ) {
	if ( ! $path ) {
		$path = get_stylesheet_directory();
	}
	return load_theme_textdomain( $domain, $path );
}

/**
 * Loads the script translated strings.
 *
 * @since 5.0.0
 * @since 5.0.2 Uses load_script_translations() to load translation data.
 * @since 5.1.0 The `$domain` parameter was made optional.
 *
 * @see WP_Scripts::set_translations()
 *
 * @param string $handle Name of the script to register a translation domain to.
 * @param string $domain Optional. Text domain. Default 'default'.
 * @param string $path   Optional. The full file path to the directory containing translation files.
 * @return string|false The translated strings in JSON encoding on success,
 *                      false if the script textdomain could not be loaded.
 */
function load_script_textdomain( $handle, $domain = 'default', $path = '' ) {
	$wp_scripts = wp_scripts();

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Changelog

Version	Description
4.6.0	The function now tries to load the .mo file from the languages directory first.
1.5.0	Introduced.

User Contributed Notes

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Codex 10 years ago

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1st example
The load_theme_textdomain() function should generally be called from within the after_setup_theme action hook.
```
add_action('after_setup_theme', 'wpdocs_theme_setup');

/**
 * Load translations for wpdocs_theme
 */
function wpdocs_theme_setup(){
    load_theme_textdomain('wpdocs_theme', get_template_directory() . '/languages');
}
```
The .mo files must use language-only filenames, like languages/de_DE.mo in your theme directory.

Unlike plugin language files, a name like my_theme-de_DE.mo will NOT work. Although plugin language files allow you to specify the text-domain in the filename, this will NOT work with themes. Language files for themes should include the language shortcut ONLY.
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Codex 10 years ago

2nd example
you can use this example if you wish to switch theme language using a variable passed within the URL, for example to load the Tamazikht language, your URL would look like; www.example.com/?l=tz_MA, this will search for a .mo file with name tz_MA.mo in the language directory inside your theme.

// CHANGE LOCAL LANGUAGE
// must be called before load_theme_textdomain()

add_filter( 'locale', 'wpdocs_theme_localized' );

/**
 * Switch to locale given as query parameter l, if present
 */
function wpdocs_theme_localized( $locale )
{
	if ( isset( $_GET['l'] ) )
	{
		return sanitize_key( $_GET['l'] );
	}

	return $locale;
}

// SET THEME LANGUAGES DIRECTORY
// Theme translations can be filed in the my_theme/languages/ directory
// WordPress translations can be filed in the wp-content/languages/ directory
load_theme_textdomain( 'wpdocs_theme_textdomain', get_template_directory().'/languages' );

load_theme_textdomain( string $domain, string|false $path = false ): bool

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