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Subject: RE: [dita] Proposed changes to the xml:lang proposal


Actually, the existing Recommended Usage section already sufficiently explains how different languages are to be marked up, so I don't see the need to add anything to this section. I'll simply remove it from the Notes to Vendors section.


Best Regards,
Gershon

-----Original Message-----
From: Gershon L Joseph [mailto:gershon@tech-tav.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 8:51 PM
To: 'Eliot Kimber'; dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: 'Grosso, Paul'
Subject: RE: [dita] Proposed changes to the xml:lang proposal

We discussed this thread at length in today's translation subcommittee meeting. The suggested rewrites are not in sync with the W3C and Unicode specs (we have representatives from both groups on the SC). However, we agree that since applications cannot correctly read the language from the characters, we should move this paragraph from the Note to Vendors section to the Recommended Usage section, and rephrase it to apply to authors and translators (the humans, not the machines). Here's the rewrite:

When working on a document that contains strings of characters from different languages, the author should use the xml:lang attribute to identify the boundaries of each language.


Best Regards,
Gershon

-----Original Message-----
From: Eliot Kimber [mailto:ekimber@innodata-isogen.com]
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 6:11 PM
To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: Grosso, Paul
Subject: Re: [dita] Proposed changes to the xml:lang proposal

Grosso, Paul wrote:
> That is why I think saying "the language...should be indicated via 
> markup" is misleading, because is the string itself (as well as its
> language) that needs to be indicated via markup.

And just to be a bit more pedantic, I think it would be clearer and more accurate to say "text" instead of "string".

While the XML data is held as strings of characters, semantically when you talk about *language" you are dealing with "text" rather than strings of characters.

I would think that the clearest statement would be something like:

"As a matter of practice, text that is in a language different from the base language of its container should be contained in XML markup that uses the xml:lang= attribute to indicate the text's national language."

Cheers,

Eliot






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