For a single site wordpress, the language must be set from wp-config.php
‘s WPLANG
, but is it possible to set from my plugin which override the default value?

1
In wp-includes/l10n.php
you will find the function get_locale()
. It offers a filter; you can set the language and ignore the constant:
function get_locale() {
global $locale;
if ( isset( $locale ) )
return apply_filters( 'locale', $locale );
// WPLANG is defined in wp-config.
if ( defined( 'WPLANG' ) )
$locale = WPLANG;
// If multisite, check options.
if ( is_multisite() ) {
// Don't check blog option when installing.
if ( defined( 'WP_INSTALLING' ) || ( false === $ms_locale = get_option( 'WPLANG' ) ) )
$ms_locale = get_site_option('WPLANG');
if ( $ms_locale !== false )
$locale = $ms_locale;
}
if ( empty( $locale ) )
$locale="en_US";
return apply_filters( 'locale', $locale );
}
To change it per plugin use the filter 'locale'
. Example:
add_filter( 'locale', 'wpse_52419_change_language' );
function wpse_52419_change_language( $locale )
{
return 'de_DE';
}