- From: Robert Burns <rob@robburns.com>
- Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 23:02:19 -0500
- To: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
`On Aug 1, 2007, at 10:53 PM, Robert Burns wrote: > > > On Aug 1, 2007, at 10:20 PM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote: > >> Doesn't that merely mean that a script's directionality can be >> expressed >> through the language code? I'm not sure how that makes it possible >> for an >> authoring tool to deduce the scripts directon from the user >> providing the >> content's language. (Or perhaps that's not what you meant.) > > I'm not really sure what you're asking. But what I'm trying to say > is that fully expressing a language using @lang or @xml:lang > provides all of the information required to deduce the > directionality. So to take just one of the examples I gave above: > > lang='iw-LATN'=> dir='LTR' > > In that case the @dir attribute is technically redundant. I'm not > saying that UAs work that way now. Rather I'm saying that by > specifying language (including the specification of unconventional > scripts), all the information is there to determine directionality. > For some languages what demarcates the unconventional script may be > up for debate and can even be a political football. If the web was > around a century ago or so when Turkey was imposing a change from > Arabic to Latin script, it would be difficult to say which was the > conventional script. It would probably require specifying precisely > which one was in use either way (if the government permits it). > > Again, though having @dir as a separate attribute saves UAs from > the need to process language codes to determine directionality. It > also is more flexible in the sense that an author can specify only > @dir and leave @lang unspecified. Or specify @dir and @lang but > provide only the primary language code with no script code. Doe > that answer your question? Just to add one more point. As far as I know there are no scripts that have more than one directionality. Once the language is specified (and I would say a romanized Hebrew is not specified without a script code), the directionality is also specified. Take care, Rob
Received on Thursday, 2 August 2007 04:02:26 UTC