RE: Alternatives for the term 'primary language'

After reading the references, I support document language.

This is the plainest phrase. In the example, the document is in German,
although it may contain Chinese phrases. 

For those who think we require a more precise phrase, how about "primary
document audience default base language"? Did I miss anything important?

Jony

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-international-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-international-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
> Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 12:01 PM
> To: www-international@w3.org
> Subject: Alternatives for the term 'primary language'
> Importance: High
> 
> 
> 
> The new WCAG draft is using the term 'primary language' in a 
> different way than we have defined it in  "Authoring 
> Techniques for XHTML & HTML Internationalization: Specifying 
> the language of content 1.0" [1].  There are other, older, 
> uses of the term 'primary language' that also do not conform 
> to our usage in this document.
> 
> In addition, 'primary language' doesn't really convey the 
> meaning of the idea expressed at [1].  The meaning is 
> intended to convey the language of the intended audience of 
> the document, referring to the document as a whole, and 
> contrasted with 'text-processing language' in that more than 
> one language value makes sense in some circumstances.
> 
> Perhaps the time has come to think of an alternative term.
> 
> We would like your suggestions.
> 
> Brainstormed suggestions so far include:
> 	document language
> 	audience language
> 	web unit language
> 	language metadata
> 	language metadata declaration
> 	document language metadata
> 	readership language
> 	default langauge
> 	base language
> 	main language
> 
> 'Document language' seemed interesting at one point, but is 
> probably not specific enough - particularly when the term is 
> translated into other languages.
> 
> Current favourites are 
> 	readership language (sounds a bit clunky)
> 	audience language
> 
> Please read [1] and [2] and tell us if you have any better 
> suggestions.
> 
> Thanks,
> RI
> 
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/#ri20040808.101452727
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/#ri20040808.102523274
> 
> 
> ============
> Richard Ishida
> Internationalization Lead
> W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
> 
> http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/
> http://www.w3.org/International/
> http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/
> 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 26 June 2006 16:48:59 UTC