DotNetNuke 4.9.0 comes with a new default skin called MinimalExtropy.

In this skin you will find several new features.
One of those features is the new Text skin object.
It is registered like this

<%@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="TEXT" Src="~/Admin/Skins/Text.ascx" %>

And it can be used like this:

<dnn:TEXT runat="server" ID="dnnTEXT" CssClass="breadcrumb_text" Text="You are here" ResourceKey="Breadcrumb.Text"/>

As you can see it supports localization by using a ResourceKey attribute.
The resource files (.resx) are located in the skin folder so you can use a different resx file for every skin. So for the MinimalExtropy skin, you can find the resx file in the "/portals/_default/skins/MinimalExtropy/App_LocalResources/" folder.

Right now, you cannot translate the files using DNN's language features, so you'll have to do that manually. But as I understand it will be supported in DNN 5.