Languages

World languages

In the history of the PS2, 12 languages have been implemented. All consoles included English, while the other languages depended on the region number in the model number:

• 00 (Japan) - Japanese
• 05 (South Korea) - Korean. However, the SCPH-30005 R and SCPH-39005, while supporting Korean characters, did not have Korean as a selectable UI language.
• 06 (Hong Kong and Macau) and 07 (Taiwan) - Traditional Chinese. However, the SCPH-30006/7 R and SCPH-39006/7, while supporting Trad. Chinese characters, did not have Trad. Chinese as a selectable UI language.
• 08 (CIS and Ukraine) - Russian. However, the SCPH-39008, while supporting Russian characters, did not have Russian as a selectable UI language.
• 09 (Mainland China) - Simplified Chinese

All others included French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese. Slimline consoles - at least the developer kits - include all languages, although not all selectable at once.

Most languages (Chinese, Korean and Russian being exceptions) can be passed to running software, but most games allow this to be overridden in their settings.

Miscellanious languages

While the console's UI was not translated into these languages, they have been officially featured in some games:

• Czech
• Danish
• Finnish
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Romanian
• Swedish
• Thai
• Turkish