Re: [community-group] Are token descriptions optional or required? (#62)

Instead of reinventing the wheel for how to apply multilingual (known as internationalization or i18n) I suggest to upgrade the JSON format of the design token for a JSON-LD format. That way it become easier to implement multilingual need. 
reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/#string-internationalization 

The following example are only limited to illustrate how JSON-LD notation can be used to express multilingual value.

Specify a default language for design token description to be French:
```json
{
  "@context" : {
    "@version": "1.1",
    "@language": "fr",
  }
  "Button background": {
    "value": "#777777",
    "description": "La couleur de fond des boutons dans leur état normal."
  }
}
```
reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/#example-68-setting-the-default-language-of-a-json-ld-document

Specify a default language for design token description to be English but contain an alternate French description:
```json
{
  "@context" : {
    "@version": "1.1",
    "@language": "en",
  }
  "Button background": {
    "value": "#777777",
    "description": [
      {
        "@value": "The background colour for buttons in their normal state."
      },
      {
        "@value": "La couleur de fond des boutons dans leur état normal.",
        "@language": "fr"
      }
    ]
  }
}
```
reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/#example-79-using-an-expanded-form-to-set-multiple-values

Specify language by leveraging sub-property inside the description property:
```json
{
  "@context" : {
    "@version": "1.1",
    "@language": "en",
    "description": {
      "@id": "https://design-tokens.github.io/community-group/format/#description",
      "@container": "@language"
    }
  }
  "Button background": {
    "value": "#777777",
    "description": {
      "en": "The background colour for buttons in their normal state.",
      "fr": "La couleur de fond des boutons dans leur état normal."
    }
  }
}
```
reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/#example-71-language-map-expressing-a-property-in-three-languages

\cc @delisma @kevinmpowell 

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Received on Tuesday, 2 November 2021 15:34:21 UTC