Re: content guidelines checkpoint 4.1

Ooops, I overlooked the words ``place-name'' when I wrote my
privious message.

I think the handling of the proper noun is different depending on
the primary language of the document.  Charles' comments seem to
well-summarize the situation in English while I think it doesn't
necessarily apply to proper nouns in Japanese document.
But the important point is that enough informaiton is provided in
the document so that user/user-agent can determine if that piece of
informaiton should be used.  The problem seems that there currently
isn't no easy way to determine if the word is proper noun.  (of
course, using class attribute could be one solution.)
     Cheers,
Max


On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 03:09:51 -0400 (EDT), Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
> I think place names and Proper nouns" (such as people's names) are a complex
> example case. In English, I use the word London to describe what in french is
> descreibed as Londres, and in Jpanese (using romaji characters) as Rondon.
> Knowing the language in this case is very helpful.
>
> But I also use the term Nagasaki. This is of foreign origin (relative to
> english - the language I am using) but is nevertheless a word in the
> language.
>
> Another example is Paris. In french it is pronounced roughly like "paree" and
> in english is pronounced roughly as "pariss".
>
> Often, the wrong pronunciation will make the term incomprehensible
> Australians have terrible trouble trying to buy Adidas footwear in the US,
> or explain what a "lefftenant" does. We mostly recognise the american
> pronunciations now through chronic exposure to american culture in TV and
> radio, but not always - "nesslay" may be one of the largest companies on the
> supermarket shelves, but in our language it is a pronunciation that is
> answered by "never heard of 'em - what do they make?".
>
> I cannot make a computer understand my voice unless I put on an american
> accent, and that is something I am still trying to learn how to do. People
> with hearing impairments or cognitive disabilities can have exactly the same
> kinds of problems in comprehension, and without the markup to provide
> solutions for them we are not going to be able to solve those problems (on
> the other hand, with the markup, we can develop tools that will solve the
> problem. We could also ignore it, and the people whose problem it is, but
> that seems foolish to me.)
>
> So to answer the original question:
>
> In general, I think that place names of foreign origin are recognised as
> words in a local language, but there are exceptions, normally for well-known
> or important places. There are times when there are two words, originally
> from differnt languages but both recognised (in Australian english we use
> either "Uluru" or "Ayer's Rock" to describe the big famous rock in the middle
> of the country. Only one of those terms came from english) in a particular
> language can be used. But in the case of a genuinely foreign name (using
> "Londres" to decsribe the capital of england in english, for example) marking
> them up is extremely important.
>
> One of the simple things that can be done with properly marked-up place names
> is to run a script over them that simply translates them. This is basic
> dictionary look-up, and if it hasn't been implemented yet it could be done by
> any decent programmer on a long lunch break in a working, if rough, manner.
>
> Charles McCN

Received on Saturday, 12 August 2000 05:55:59 UTC