Change ?language to ?country

[criat]

I'm using this code to change languages:

 

Select your country:
<a href="{$smarty.server.PHP_SELF}?language=brasil">Brasil</a>
<a href="{$smarty.server.PHP_SELF}?language=us">United States</a>
<a href="{$smarty.server.PHP_SELF}?language=spain">Spain</a>

 

I would like to replace ?language to ?country, so I tried this in .htaccess:

 

RewriteRule ^(.*)?language=(.+)$ (.*)?country=(.+)$1

 

Didn't work though, I'm kinda noob.

Any suggestions?