RE: Additional thoughts on language specification

Yvette wrote:
> Thanks for your comment. I agree that it would be a clear way to
> present it to the authors. But I'm not sure it is in sync with what
> the rest of W3C recommends since the other references seem to be very
> keen on the META technique... 

As far as I remember some W3C I18N documents (e.g., when it comes to any
encoding declarations, a similar scenario), it is always emphasized that
HTTP headers are not available locally.

> What would you recommend in the case of a document with two primary
> languages? Lang/xml:lang only allow one language. 

You should declare the main language on the root element, and exceptions on
the corresponding elements. If there is no such thing like a "main
language", you should specify the language on elements following later.

Roughly, for a German document:

  <html xml:lang="de" />

Italian, some English:

  <html xml:lang="it">
    <p xml:lang="en" />
  </html>

French and English, assuming that there is no other text outside the
exemplary "div" elements:

  <html>
    <div xml:lang="fr" />
    <div xml:lang="en" />
  </html>

> If I had to encode such a document, I would use the META technique to
> declare the languages of the document as a hole and <div lang="nl"> and
> <div lang="fr"> to specify the languages of the sections. 

Well, if you use a "meta" element here, too, then you could also use a
"lang" attribute on the root element.


John wrote:
> I disagree with Jens and Roberto: some language- techniques for
> specifying language may *not* be sufficient for accessibility pruposes.

Well, okay, I zeroed in on "lang"/"xml:lang" attributes. But, as far as I
understand your feedback, there is nothing - "except" for partially
insufficient support of "xml:lang" - really harmful with this approach,
isn't it?


-- 
Jens Meiert
Information Architect

http://meiert.com/

http://uitest.com/ < Reloaded

Received on Monday, 12 September 2005 14:23:17 UTC