Jekyll i18n is a plugin that enables simplistic multi-language site designs using Jekyll. It is written by Liam Edwards-Playne and licensed under the GPLv3.

NOTE: I've moved on from actively developing this gem (I transitioned to WordPress :P), but I am happy to accept pull requests should they be submitted. Alternatively, you can look at jekyll-multiple-languages-plugin which may be of use.

Install

gem install jekyll-i18n

Then add require 'jekyll-i18n' to _plugins/ext.rb.

Tutorial

The basic principle is that we distinguish between two types of content:

1. translated — content translated fully for a single language.
2. non-content — non-translatable or binary data

We identify the type by part of the filename.

Translated content

Translated content is that which has a language code directly following its title but preceding its file extension — e.g. PAGE-NAME.LANG.EXT. These files will be generated and written to a subdirectory named after the language — e.g. /LANG/PAGE-NAME.

This plugin injects itself at the last stage of permalinks, so your permalinks will remain intact.

Non-content

Non-content is simply written to its usual location.

Tags and Filters

For the purposes of translating specific phrases, there is a t tag and filter made available. Translation files are stored in _i18n/LANG.yml and contains a mapping of keys to translations for a specific language. For example, a file fr.yml for French translations:

fr:
  Quote of the day: "La citation du jour"
  interesting: intéressant

In a file with translated content, test.md for example:

<h3>{%t Quote of the day %}. <small>{%t interesting %}!</small></h3>

The following would be written to /fr/test.html:

<h3>La citation du jour. <small>intéressant!</small></h3>

Variables

This plugin makes the page.lang variable available.

Accessing language-specific posts

To aid in accessing language-specific posts, such as for the purposes of post archives, we automatically tag the post based on its language. You can access all French posts under the Liquid variable site.tags.fr.

Translating permalinks

For translated permalinks (e.g. /archives/ for English and /articles/ for French) it suffices to use the permalink field in the page. For a page archives.fr.md you could do:

---
permalink: /articles/
title: Articles.
---
...

I have yet to produce an automated solution that makes use of the translation files to localise the page permalink.