Landyphil,
this is a very good research. Congratulations.
Now, why don't we wait a bit for isaac @ id242, see if he can come up with a more practical solution, one that do not involve in translating the whole set of files again?
I can survive easy with /languages/portugues/admin folder all in English, but redo all /language/portugues/* again to Portuguese will be quite a pain.

id242, can you shine in? smile

tks.