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Subject: DOCBOOK: Multiple-language glossterms


Since I have been a lurker on this list for some time and this is my first 
post, hello everyone.

I am currently writing a paper, using the 4.2 XML DTD, in English, on a 
subject "invented" by German-speaking Europeans, which is intended to be read 
by both English- and German-speakers. So in my glossary, aside from the 
English glossary terms and English glossdefs, I would also like to include 
German translations of the terms used. I am unsure whether there's a more 
elegant alternative to what I'm doing:

  <glossentry>
    <glossterm>Net present value</glossterm>
    <acronym>NPV</acronym>
    <glossdef>
      <para>(German: <foreignphrase
          lang="de">Kapitalwert</foreignphrase>)
          <!-- Elaborate description of NPV follows. -->
      </para>
    </glossdef>
  </glossentry>

Ugly, right? If one had to use those parentheses, it would be nicer to include 
them in the glossterm. Yet if I did that, I would have to use:

<glossterm>Net present value (German: <foreignphrase         
lang="de">Kapitalwert</foreignphrase></glossterm>

anywhere in the text where I wanted a glossary reference (so the docbook-xsl 
stylesheets would be able to produce links in the text). So that won't work, 
notwithstanding the fact that it would still be ugly markup anyway. 

Another alternative is this:

  <glossentry id="ge_npv">
    <glossterm lang="en">Net present value</glossterm>
    <acronym lang="en">NPV</acronym>
    <glossdef>
      <para>
          <!-- Elaborate description of NPV follows. -->
      </para>
    </glossdef>
  </glossentry>
  <glossentry>
    <glossterm lang="de">Kapitalwert</glossterm>
    <glosssee otherterm="ge_npv"/>
  </glossentry>

.. which I also find ugly, as it doesn't really reflect that "net present 
value" and "Kapitalwert" are really the same thing. 

What would help is something along these lines:

  <glossentry>
    <glossterm lang="en">Net present value</glossterm>
    <glossterm lang="de">Kapitalwert</glossterm>
    <acronym lang="en">NPV</acronym>
    <glossdef>
      <para>
          <!-- Elaborate description of NPV follows. -->
      </para>
    </glossdef>
  </glossentry>

Yet a glossentry only allows one child glossterm (although it does allow 
multiple glossdefs, so multi-language definitions of one single-language 
glossary term are OK). What's the reasoning behind this; what would be a good 
way to resolve the issue described using the present DTD? Or would this 
warrant an RFE?

Cheers,
-- Florian




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