EndUserSharePoint.com: Bug or a feature – calendar changes from English to Arabic?

This comes from Doug Taylor:

In my last two SharePoint training classes we saw, and were able to replicate the following:

1. User notes that Calendar initially shows time in US West Coast time. Wants to change it.
2. User navigates to Welcome menu, My Settings, My Regional Settings.
3. User changes Time Zone (which doesn’t seem to affect this bug), but also changes Set your Calendar to Gregorian Transliterated English Calendar.
4. User returns to Calendar to find that the month names have changed to Arabic (see screen cap).

Bug?

Here’s the official response from Microsoft:

“In researching this is indeed Arabic and behavior by design.  The Gregorian Transliterated English Calendar is what you would want to use if you preferred Arabic.  It would make much more sense to call this Calendar template “Gregorian Arabic Transliterated English Calendar” but the template is hard coded into the software and cannot be changed.  Most English users will want to use the default “Gregorian” calendar.

“I will pass this feedback along to the Product Group and design team so that they can consider making this behavior more intuitive for future releases.

“Thank you for your feedback.”