Comment 8 for bug 650910

As far as I know, the environment variables should be interpreted as follows:

LANG - default language for all LC_* variables in case the specific variable is not defined

LC_ADDRESS - snail mail address formatting rules
LC_COLLATE - alphabetical sort order and rules for deciding if two letters are considered identical or not
LC_CTYPE - character classification and case conversions
LC_MEASUREMENT - measurements (e.g. metric vs. imperial)
LC_MESSAGES - USER INTERFACE MESSAGES AND DIAGNOSTICS (this bug!)
LC_MONETARY - display rules for money or currency related stuff
LC_NAME=fi_FI.UTF-8 - gender related prefixes such as "Mr" and "Mrs"
LC_NUMERIC=en_DK.UTF-8 - rendering of numerics (e.g. "1,000,000.00" vs "1 000 000,00") other than monetary
LC_PAPER=fi_FI.UTF-8 - paper size (e.g. letter vs A4)
LC_TELEPHONE=fi_FI.UTF-8 - telephone number formatting rules
LC_TIME=en_DK.UTF-8 - time rendering rules

LC_ALL - override for any LANG and/or LC_* environment settings.