Flag icons for languages
The use of flag icons, particularly national flags, for languages is a common practice. Such icons have long been used on tourist attraction signage, and elsewhere in the tourism space, but have found wider use in website localization where UX limitations have become apparent. Mixed flags Sometimes the flags of international language communities, such as the Flag of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries or the flag of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie can be used, but they are not as widely recognised as national flags. Where more than one country is a major user of a language, a flag divided diagonally may be used, such as the flags of Brazil and Portugal to indicate the Portuguese language; Brazilians may be offended by the use of their former colonial master's flag to symbolise the Portuguese language, as there are far more speakers of it in Brazil (over 200 million) than in Portugal (10 million). Writing systems Where two written standards exist for a single language, national flags can be used to distinguish between them: for example, the Flag of Taiwan for Traditional Chinese and the Flag of the People's Republic of China for Simplified Chinese. Political motivations Some Euronet