Change language of system and error messages in PostgreSQL

Question

Is it possible to change the language of system messages from PostgreSQL?

In MSSQL for instance this is possible with the SQL statement SET LANGUAGE.

Answer 1

Milen's answer didn't work for me.

I got it working by modifying a file postgresql.conf. If you're on Linux, write:

sudo find / -iname postgresql.conf

I had mine in /var/lib/pgsql/data. Then edit the file and search for a variable lc_messages and change it to your preferred language, e.g. 'en_US.UTF-8'.

If PostgreSQL stops working and you check in its log that you have an error that looks like this:

invalid value for parameter "lc_messages": "en_US.UTF-8"

You have to edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment line with encoding from the error message (e.g. en_US.UTF-8). Then you have to run locale-gen (as root) to update the locales. Finally, to check if the locale is set you can run locale -a.

Or, if you want the language to be English, you can just set lc_messages = 'C'.