I just have to mention this but I’m working in Norway, in a company that consistently in legacy code is using a mix of Norwegian and English. And it’s a complete mess to read the code. Its like our famous race car driver said “I isn’t only only, but but”
Not Elixir though. But equally painful
Why would it be a problem? Overall, very few companies are international.
I don’t like mixing English-like syntax with French so I code 100% in English, but conversely, if I coded in a language which uses French syntax I wouldn’t mix English comments in there. This said, if people in a company are not fluent in English it makes sense commenting the code in their own language.
Language syntax is easily learned without knowing even an ounce of English. Not knowing English well can even make it easier, because as you must know, language constructs have much narrower definitions and usage than standard English. It’s true that it’s going to be harder for documentation as Elixir is not a widely used language, but it’s easy to find tutorials and fora in French (and probably even easier in German as Elixir is more hyped there).
Why wouldn’t a tutorial be able to translate what Supervisor or GenServer mean? You should try to ask any English speaker who isn’t a programmer what GenServer could mean, they won’t know.
Whether you speak English or not, those are magic words. People have dreamt about creating a computer language that can be used like a natural language, and it will never happen.
Except it isn’t for the vast majority of programs.
I feel for OP though. I would personally avoid working on a project written in a language I don’t understand…
Without aspiration, we may as well quit coding and go back to farming.
Programming is one of the few occupations that transcend borders.
I knew before joining that the codebase was in German. The reason I decided to join was that the team was new, does not speak or write German either, understood the problem and had a plan in place to improve it. Other dev teams in the company are German speaking and one day I will get them to translate everything as well 
Maybe my initial message came across as me being frustrated but I actually find it an interesting challenge.
No, your audience really is the entire world. If not for any other romantic reasons (which I don’t view as important, just like you don’t) but for the simple pragmatic reason that sometimes people leave, get sick, start families and quit the work force, get fired, take long sabbaticals etc. – and then the company shareholders are left with the hot potato. Suddenly they can’t hire anyone from the local market (f.ex. due to low salaries – happens a lot) and have to look for remote, 99% likely English-speaking, contractors.
It’s not just sensible, but downright mandatory, to write all your code – function names, module names, variable names, environment variable names – in English even if you’re in a 100% Arabic or Chinese team.
Exactly my point. If you’re learning only by tutorials in your native language, chances are you have extremely limited knowledge. English is lingua franca for software development, and with English knowledge you can learn 99.9% of all software development ideas. If you learn only in your local language, you have access only to poor translations. Even in active community (and Russian-speaking community is the third largest Elixir community after English-speaking and Brazil), you’ll have only poor and outdated translations and a few blogs.
So, you just have to know English to have a broad and deep Elixir knowledge. Even if you don’t read blogs and only read source code, terms and comments there will be in English. And if you know English (even as poorly as I do), there is no reason to use your native language in a codebase.
The important thing is that you are not alone in this, and that you are allowed to change the codebase so thoroughly 
Hiring low cost contractors you can’t communicate with because their version of English pidgin is quite different from yours is not such a great idea.
If programmers were as fluent in English as you think they are then I would agree
@hst337 You seem to think that localised tutorials are going to be of lesser quality or even poor translations, but I don’t think that’s the case. I agree about Elixir because it is still a niche language, but anyone can learn 99.9% of software development concept and ideas using French, Chinese or Russian. All the courses in my university where 100% in French, and it’s never been a problem. Comments would be written in French, and the code itself in “English”, but not the kind of English that a native could understand easily, let alone someone from a completely different cultural background.
Sure, this could be a case of a filter bubble. I would never agree to work on non-English codebase unless (1) given unfettered access to a translator and (2) the shareholders understand the work is going to go slowly and will be difficult to sneak any features at all; 95% will be refactoring.
As long as they’re on board that their previous mistakes will cost them, dearly, I can work with them. If not, I wish them luck.
I’d think most know basic English however, enough to give their variables okay names. But maybe I am wrong.
Yes. I am not talking about local languages like ДРАКОН or 1C. I am talking about Elixir and Erlang.
Universities are usually several years late about everything in programming. And still, any more-serious-than-bachelor degree requires good English language knowledge. Academia in CS is 100% in English. If you take a look at any Erlang-related paper from Swedish academia or any Elixir-related paper from Brazilian academia, you’ll find out that all of them are in English. So your point is completely wrong in practice.
Anyway, level of knowledge from a person not speaking English would be limited by what a few teachers know. And I personally do not teach anybody without English knowledge, since I don’t have time to translate every paper I want student to know (and generally speaking, there is no point in translating it). Teachers tend to give fishing rod, not the fish. So first thing every CS program does is English courses