Well, looks like topic is all researched through and through and closed forever. But, surprisingly, NO:)
The easiest way is to install WP in your language is:
just go to http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language, download the package, install it manually (having created database and user in phpMyAdmin before) and have fun.
If you have automatic installation in your language inside your hosting CPanel – then it’s just a matter of few clicks.
But what to do if you have your installation in default English, tons of posts, pictures and medias and just too lazy (as I am) to make backups, uninstalling and installing WP again? And that’s all only for sake of Cyrillic characters displaying as endless ???????????????????????????
To solve problem with Cyrillic characters in WP:
1. Go again to http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language
What you need is two files in your language with extensions .mo and .po. Actually you may download the full installation package of WP in you language and extract /language folder from /wp-content and then upload the whole folder to your existing installation.
2. Let’s assume you just have got two files let’s say in Ukrainian uk.mo and uk.po
Using FTP client go to your WP installation and enter /wp-content or /wp-includes.
Then create folder /languages
Upload both files into that folder.
3. Download wp-config to your harddrive and open it with Notepad or any other simple text editor (no MS Word allowed).
Find:
/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf-8′);
change to:
/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘windows-1251′);
4. Upload wp-config back rewriting previous version.
5. That should solve the problem.
