Safari Language Randomly Changed

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Level 1

8 points

Safari Language Randomly Changed

I'm running Safari version 7.0.4 on OS X version 10.9.3, on a late-2013, 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

My friend was fidling around on my laptop one day on Safari, and when I came back to it, the language had somehow changed. I'm not sure what he did, and he doesn't know of anything he could have done either, but auto-correct is displaying about every word as incorect (underlined red) and the auto-fix text function keeps changing my words to this language that I'm not sure what is. It makes for many spelling mistakes and is extremely annoying. I tried looking into language settings and everywhere I looked the language is set to English. Not really sure what could be the problem.

Does anyone know of what the problem could be? If not, is there any way to reset or re-install Safari so that this would resolve the issue?

Thanks in advance,

~Z

Posted on Jul 5, 2014 11:29 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Carolyn Samit

Level 10

165,615 points

Jul 5, 2014 12:36 PM in response to Zedethe

Open System Preferences > Language & Region

Make sure English is at the top of the Preferred Languages box on the left.

Then click the Advanced tab then the General tab.

Make sure the Format Language tab is set to English.

Back to System Preferences. This time select: Keyboard then select t he Input Sources tab.

Make sure U.S. is on the left. If not, click + then select English > Add

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Answer 2

Zedethe Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 5, 2014 1:03 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks, but my settings were already set to what you said, other than the fact my keyboard is Canadian English. I added U.S. just in case, but it's still not working.

Is there any way that it's a possible problem with auto correct itself thinking it's a different language?

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Answer 3

Jul 5, 2014 1:03 PM in response to Zedethe

Try Safari > Preferences > Advanced

Make sure: Western (ISO Latin 1) is selected for Default encoding:

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Answer 4

Zedethe Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 5, 2014 1:09 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Again, thanks, but that doesn't seem to be the problem, as it's already set to that. I tried changing it to something else then back to Western, but I'm still getting the same issue.

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Answer 5

Jul 5, 2014 1:10 PM in response to Zedethe

Just in case, run the malware removal tool here > The Safe Mac » Adware Removal Guide

Only takes a few minutes.

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Answer 6

Zedethe Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 5, 2014 1:18 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thank you, though it did find something and deleted it, this still hasn't fixed the issue.

A small note, if it helps: There was a system update I hadn't installed which I did just after reporting the problem (now Safari 7.0.5 and OSX 10.9.4) and any code update that was done did did not fix this.

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Answer 7

Jul 5, 2014 1:47 PM in response to Zedethe

Well, at least the malware's gone.....

Turn off extensions in Safari > Preferences > Extensions then quit and relaunch Safari to test.

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Answer 8

Zedethe Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 5, 2014 1:55 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

I had thought about that too, but I have no extensions and they were already turned off anyway

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Answer 9

Jul 5, 2014 2:05 PM in response to Zedethe

Might be corrupted Safari preferences

Quit Safari.

Open a Finder window. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

Click Go then move the com.apple.Safari.plist file to the trash.

Relaunch Safari to test.

If that doesn't help, delete the cache.

Open a Finder window. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db

Click Go then move the Cache.db file to the Trash.

Quit and relaunch Safari to test again.

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Answer 10

Zedethe Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 5, 2014 2:17 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Although that wasn't the issue, I did end up finding the problem while searching through as many settings as I could. It was under [System Preferences > Keyboard > Text] and the Spelling was set to Spanish for some reason.

Though I did end up finding it on my own, I want to greatly thank you for all the help you have given me, and am grateful Apple has such a helpful community.

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Answer 11

Jul 5, 2014 4:22 PM in response to Zedethe

I'm glad you got it worked out and I completely forgot about the keyboard > text.

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