diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 015a031..0de9aaf 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -7,4 +7,3 @@ node_modules/
 .idea
 .sass-cache
 *.map
-js/lang.js
diff --git a/dump_js_lang.php b/dump_js_lang.php
deleted file mode 100755
index 80196de..0000000
--- a/dump_js_lang.php
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,28 +0,0 @@
-<?php
-
-/* This script is run on demand to generate JS version of tr() */
-
-require_once __DIR__ . '/base.php';
-
-$selected = [
-	'wifi.connected_ip_is',
-	'wifi.not_conn',
-	'wifi.enter_passwd',
-	'term_nav.fullscreen',
-	'term_conn.connecting',
-	'term_conn.waiting_content',
-	'term_conn.disconnected',
-	'term_conn.waiting_server',
-	'term_conn.reconnecting'
-];
-
-$out = [];
-foreach ($selected as $key) {
-	$out[$key] = tr($key);
-}
-
-file_put_contents(__DIR__. '/js/lang.js',
-	"// Generated from PHP locale file\n" .
-	'let _tr = ' . json_encode($out, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT|JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE) . ";\n\n" .
-	"module.exports = function tr (key) { return _tr[key] || '?' + key + '?' }\n"
-);
diff --git a/js/lang.js b/js/lang.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..01bac93
--- /dev/null
+++ b/js/lang.js
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+let data = require('locale-data')
+
+module.exports = function localize (key) {
+  return data[key] || `?${key}?`
+}
diff --git a/lang/keys.js b/lang/keys.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..967aa6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lang/keys.js
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+// define language keys used by JS here
+module.exports = [
+  'wifi.connected_ip_is',
+  'wifi.not_conn',
+  'wifi.enter_passwd',
+  'term_nav.fullscreen',
+  'term_conn.connecting',
+  'term_conn.waiting_content',
+  'term_conn.disconnected',
+  'term_conn.waiting_server',
+  'term_conn.reconnecting'
+]
diff --git a/lang/lang-loader.js b/lang/lang-loader.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7ab8c3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lang/lang-loader.js
@@ -0,0 +1,178 @@
+/*
+ * This is a Webpack loader.
+ * Loads language PHP files by parsing the PHP syntax and returning a Javascript
+ * Object. This is because using JSON instead of PHP would not allow multiline
+ * strings, and CSON is unsupported by PHP, and because splitting the language
+ * files into PHP and JSON seems unwieldy.
+ */
+
+const selectedKeys = require('./keys')
+
+const tokenizeRest = function (tokens, tokenize, ...args) {
+  let i = 0
+
+  while (i < tokens.length) {
+    if (typeof tokens[i] === 'string') {
+      tokens.splice(i, 1, ...tokenize(tokens[i], ...args))
+    }
+    i++
+  }
+
+  return tokens
+}
+
+const tokenizers = {
+  simpleType (code, regex, type, matchIndex = 1) {
+    let tokens = []
+    let match
+
+    while ((match = code.match(regex))) {
+      let before = code.substr(0, match.index)
+      code = code.substr(match.index + match[0].length)
+
+      if (before) tokens.push(before)
+      tokens.push({
+        type,
+        match,
+        content: match[matchIndex]
+      })
+    }
+
+    if (code) tokens.push(code)
+
+    return tokens
+  }
+}
+
+const unescapeString = function (token) {
+  if (token.match[1] === "'") {
+    // single-quoted string only has \\ and \'
+    return token.content.replace(/\\[\\']/g, match => match[1])
+  } else {
+    // double-quoted string
+    // \n -> 0x0A
+    // \r -> 0x0D
+    // \t -> 0x09
+    // \v -> 0x0B
+    // \e -> 0x1B
+    // \f -> 0x0C
+    // \\ -> \
+    // \$ -> $
+    // \" -> "
+    // \[0-7]{1,3} -> char
+    // \x[\da-f]{1,2} -> char
+    // \u{[\da-f]+} -> char
+    let content = token.content
+    content = content.replace(/\\[nrtvef\\$"]/g, match => match[1])
+    content = content.replace(/\\[0-7]{1,3}/g, match => {
+      return String.fromCodePoint(parseInt(match.substr(1), 8) % 0xFF)
+    })
+    content = content.replace(/\\x[\da-f]{1,2}/ig, match => {
+      return String.fromCodePoint(parseInt(match.substr(1), 16) % 0xFF)
+    })
+    content = content.replace(/\\u{[\da-f]+}/ig, match => {
+      return String.fromCodePoint(parseInt(match.substr(1), 16))
+    })
+    return content
+  }
+}
+
+module.exports = function (source) {
+  let originalSource = source
+
+  // remove PHP header
+  source = source.replace(/^\s*<\?(?:php)?\s*/, '')
+
+  // remove return statement
+  source = source.replace(/^return\s*/, '')
+
+  // remove trailing semicolon
+  source = source.replace(/;\s*$/, '')
+
+  // strings
+  let tokens = tokenizeRest([source], tokenizers.simpleType, /(['"])((?:\\.|[^\\\1])*?)\1/, 'string', 2)
+
+  // comments
+  tokenizeRest(tokens, tokenizers.simpleType, /\/\/(.*)/, 'comment')
+
+  // map delimiters
+  tokenizeRest(tokens, tokenizers.simpleType, /([[\]])/, 'map')
+
+  // arrows
+  tokenizeRest(tokens, tokenizers.simpleType, /(=>)/, 'arrow')
+
+  // commas
+  tokenizeRest(tokens, tokenizers.simpleType, /(,)/, 'comma')
+
+  // whitespace
+  tokenizeRest(tokens, tokenizers.simpleType, /(\s+)/, 'whitespace')
+
+  // remove whitespace tokens and comments
+  tokens = tokens.filter(token => !(['whitespace', 'comment'].includes(token.type)))
+
+  // split tokens into an array of items, separated by commas
+  let currentItem = []
+  let items = [currentItem]
+
+  for (let token of tokens) {
+    let { type } = token
+
+    if (type === 'map') continue
+    if (type === 'comma') items.push(currentItem = [])
+    else currentItem.push(token)
+  }
+
+  // remove null items
+  items = items.filter(item => item.length)
+
+  // assume that every item will contain [string, arrow, string] and create
+  // an object
+  let data = {}
+
+  for (let item of items) {
+    let key = item[0]
+    let value = item[2]
+
+    if (!key || !value) {
+      console.error('Item has no key or value!', item)
+      continue
+    }
+
+    data[unescapeString(key)] = unescapeString(value)
+  }
+
+  let result = {}
+
+  // put selected keys in result
+  for (let key of selectedKeys) {
+    result[key] = data[key]
+  }
+
+  // adapted from webpack/loader-utils
+  let remainingRequest = this.remainingRequest
+  if (!remainingRequest) {
+    remainingRequest = this.loaders.slice(this.loaderIndex + 1)
+      .map(obj => obj.request)
+      .concat([this.resource]).join('!')
+  }
+
+  let currentRequest = this.currentRequest
+  if (!currentRequest) {
+    remainingRequest = this.loaders.slice(this.loaderIndex)
+      .map(obj => obj.request)
+      .concat([this.resource]).join('!')
+  }
+
+  let map = {
+    version: 3,
+    file: currentRequest,
+    sourceRoot: '',
+    sources: [remainingRequest],
+    sourcesContent: [originalSource],
+    names: [],
+    mappings: 'AAAA;AAAA'
+  }
+
+  this.callback(null, `/* Generated language file */
+module.exports=${JSON.stringify(result)}`, map)
+}
diff --git a/webpack.config.js b/webpack.config.js
index e332745..94b9866 100644
--- a/webpack.config.js
+++ b/webpack.config.js
@@ -20,6 +20,13 @@ plugins.push(new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
   sourceMap: devtool === 'source-map'
 }))
 
+// replace "locale-data" with path to locale data
+let locale = process.env.LOCALE || 'en'
+plugins.push(new webpack.NormalModuleReplacementPlugin(
+  /^locale-data$/,
+  path.resolve(`lang/${locale}.php`)
+))
+
 module.exports = {
   entry: './js',
   output: {
@@ -34,6 +41,10 @@ module.exports = {
           path.resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules')
         ],
         loader: 'babel-loader'
+      },
+      {
+        test: /lang\/.+?\.php$/,
+        loader: './lang/lang-loader.js'
       }
     ]
   },