jv16 wroteI agree that flags indicate countries, not languages.
But I think graphical elements with text are better than text alone, if you see a familiar flag you can easily find your language from the list. From a text-only list it's much more difficult to spot your language.
I disagree ... it's not more difficult at all and after all maybe Stars and Stripes is not so representative for Great Britain (English) residents, nor the French flag for french speaking Canadian residents, nor the Netherlands flag for Dutch speaking Belgian residents (Flemish), and so on... There are plenty of examples.
"if you see a familiar flag you can easily find your language from the list..."
Look at the examples above: your statement could only be true if that flag concerns a country where only one language is spoken which is not a language of another country!
Besides, what's a "familiar" flag? Is a Portuguese flag representative or familiar for a Brasilian inhabitant, e.g.? It's quite possible that a Brasilian does not even know the flag of Portugal (see "Flag as a symbol of language - Stupidity or insult", by Jukka Korpela).
The CEN (1) Workshop Agreement European Culturally Specific ICT Requirements says:
The use of national flags to denote language, although convenient to implement, is another potential source of major irritation to the users, particularly for native speakers of the language outside the thus indicated country.
(1)European Committee for Standardization
