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Laura GilLaura Gil 

Languages that appear in gray are currently used by your company, users, or both. They cannot be deactivated in Salesforce

Hi all,
we have a very difficult project requirement coming from Switzerland. They want German as their default corporate language.
They don't want want the Language Settings to contain English (grey color). I hadn't added English to the Settings. It was already there, probably when you get a new Salesforce Lightning application, at least English comes automatically selected in the Language Settings?. Not sure.
 
Unfortunately even if I set German as the Language in every user profile/record, I am not able to deselect English in the Language Settings. There is a note which says: "Languages that appear in gray are currently used by your company, users, or both. They cannot be deactivated in Salesforce".
 
I wanted to ask you and hopefully I get this clear:
 
1. How can it be that English appears as already selected in the Language Settings and can not be deactivated?
2. Where do these greyed Languages come from?
3. Anybody here who could let it deactivate by the Salesforce Support per experience? (Support Reqest, opened a case)
4. Which are the risks of having this selected (English) as Language Setting when you want to have your application in German or another language for example or when your default corporate language is another language than English?
Best Answer chosen by Laura Gil
VinayVinay (Salesforce Developers) 
Hi Laura,

Looking at the message it clearly states that they are users using english language and while signing up org initially default language is English.

Below are few check points.
>> Users in your org might be using the English language.  
>> No Articles or Solutions that might have been translated. 
>> Translation Workbench is not enabled. 
>> Default Language for the org is English.

Below is the known issue which is been fixed.

https://success.salesforce.com/issues_view?id=a1p30000000wkVVAAY

Hoping you should be able to remove once you review above and unplug the references.

Hope above information was helpful.

Please mark as Best Answer so that it can help others in the future.

Thanks,
Vinay Kumar

All Answers

VinayVinay (Salesforce Developers) 
Hi Laura,

Looking at the message it clearly states that they are users using english language and while signing up org initially default language is English.

Below are few check points.
>> Users in your org might be using the English language.  
>> No Articles or Solutions that might have been translated. 
>> Translation Workbench is not enabled. 
>> Default Language for the org is English.

Below is the known issue which is been fixed.

https://success.salesforce.com/issues_view?id=a1p30000000wkVVAAY

Hoping you should be able to remove once you review above and unplug the references.

Hope above information was helpful.

Please mark as Best Answer so that it can help others in the future.

Thanks,
Vinay Kumar
This was selected as the best answer
Laura GilLaura Gil
Hi Vinay,
thanks for responding.
I don't know what happened at the very beginning when the orgs were created, but it makes sense what you say, probably the Sys Admin who created the org signed up in English, but how is this process? when you create a Salesforce org you have to choose the language you will use in order to create the new org?.
I checked all the points:
>> Users in your org might be using the English language: Yes there are
>> No Articles or Solutions that might have been translated: None of these items have been translated, do they need to be translated?
>> Translation Workbench is not enabled: It is enabled
>> Default Language for the org is English: No, default language is German (Company default language).

What is still weird not only English but also German appear gray. It makes sense when the Sys Admin created the org he signed up in English?, but why German apears as gray additionally?
Laura GilLaura Gil
So, Vinay, I found out what happened just testing with a Developer Edition org. When signing up I chose for example Germany as my country. After signing up and verifying my account I entered to the new created application and noticed that the whole application appears in German and users have German as the default language. I went to the Language Settings and effectively I saw German appears gray. Then I changed the user language for an user to English. The Language Settings contain German and English which appear as gray (both). So, if users change their language for the first time this will appear as gray in the Language Settings.
VinayVinay (Salesforce Developers) 
Good to hear that.

Cheers..!