Google & native language

Sep 22, 2010
(Resolved: see last line of the post)
I am facing a strange problem with google homepage. The homepage loads in a different language (check the pictures attached), which even google auto-translate cannot detect. Few of the writings look like: ᏧᎵᎦᏚᎢᏓ ᎣᏚᏓᎸ ᏚᏙᏢᏒ ,  ᏂᎦᏓᏊ ᎫᎦᎵ ᎨᏒᎢ, ᎢᏳᏍᏗ ᎨᏒ ᎣᏲᎲᎢ, ᎠᏱᏍᏗ, ᎬᎾᎨᏒ ᎢᏗᎬᏁᏗ ᏗᏟᎶᏍᏔᏅ.


I can change the language going into the settings of page, which was is not easy as "English" in not one of the options in language list (most probably "English" is written using that strange script). I first switched to one of the languages ('Hindi' in my case) which was familiar to me and then again changed the language to English. But the problem is that the settings are lost whenever the relevant (google's) cookies are cleared. I am curious about why google loaded this strange language. I googled (aka searched) and found that there were few other similar incidents.

Following are the other observations which might be relevant.
  • Using Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) 64-bit installation  (not relevant)
  • Noticed this behavior after fresh installation of Ubuntu 64-bit (not relevant)
  • Other browsers (chrome and opera) seems to be working fine
  • The problem can be solved by setting language to "English" in settings, but it reappears when the stored cookies are deleted.
  • This strange language is the default language even after logging into google/gmail account which has English(US) as the default language.
I will be posting more details and workaround here, if I can figure it out. You can find the solution here.