The Confluence Documentation does not really offer information about which contents use the Global Default Language and which contents use the user's preferences.
According to the Help Tips at /admin/viewlanguage.action, the GDL "will only affect users if their browser does not send a language to Confluence [...]".
This is just wrong. As of Confluence 6.1.2 (or also older ones like 5.9.7), the GDL also affects (at least):
In both cases, the user's preference is ignored. Does this happen on purpose?
I understand there are some reasons, why Templates should be the same throughout Confluence. But why shouldn't an e-mail subject be in the same language as its contents?
And why am I not able to find this information in the Confluence Documentation? I'd really appreciate if Atlassian engaged more in means of multilingualism...
Back to the initial question: What exactly is affected by the Global Default Language?
Per Choosing a Default Language the default language should be applied to all spaces in your Confluence site.
The email subject line issue is a bug, not intended behavior:
Language settings about email notifications of sharing pages on Confluence
The bug is public so feel free to vote and/or comment on it.
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