Language flags vs universal language icon

Many major websites these days use country flags to indicate which other languages the content is available in. For example, the English language is usually represented by the Union Flag or the Dutch language by a flag of the Netherlands. The problem with this approach is that location and language are not really that related. Many countries have multiple languages, such as Belgium which has 3 national languages (Dutch, French and German) or India which has no less than 22. Languages themselves can't be linked to a single country either. Sure, Japanese is native to Japan, but which flag would you use for Korean? The North-Korean or the South-Korean flag? Should English be represented by the Union Jack since the language originated in England or by an American Flag since it has more native English speakers?

In an ideal world, explicit links to versions of a webpage in different languages wouldn't be required. It's possible for a server and a user agent to smoothly negotiate which version to display according to the browser language preferences. In practice however, users are not always able to configure these settings which is why many websites opt to display links to all available languages to begin with.

You might conclude that using icons isn't a good idea, and webmasters should simply use text links. However, these icons were introduced for a reason; people notice them a lot quicker than a text link. This  is especially essential for language selection since a visitor will quickly leave if they can't read the content of a webpage and do not notice a way to change the language immediately.

To solve this dilemma, one design company has attempted to standardize a language select icon which looks like this:

Unfortunately, the company which started this great initiative has chosen a very meaningless icon. They're in the process of replacing the icon, but the problem with standards is that changing them after introduction is even worse than not having a standard.

The excuse for introducing this icon is simply that the shape doesn't signify anything - so it's not ambiguous - and that it's very simple to draw, recognise and remember. That's true, but in fact it looks more like a house or a floppy disk; why not choose an icon which is recognizable to people who have never seen it before? That's the true power of using a graphic, isn't it?

Since there is no perfect solution yet, we applaud the Language Icon initiative, but we hope they'll quickly choose a better icon and stick to it. We suggest using a graphic similar to one of these: