Fwd: Re: Our AG subgroup could use some Internationalization

Here's some info i sent on the original email thread.

ri


> *From:* r12a <ishida@w3.org>
> *Date:* 7 April 2026 at 19:50
> *To:* Steven Hoober <steven@4ourth.com>
> *CC:* Fuqiao Xue <xfq@w3.org>, atsushi@w3.org, bert@w3.org
> *Subject:* Our AG subgroup could use some Internationalization
> Steven Hoober wrote on 07/04/2026 18:46:
>
> Steven, before this goes much further, please switch the discussion to 
> a GH issue.  We find it difficult to follow and share information from 
> emails, and we cannot fit them into our review management system.  You 
> could raise an issue in the WCAG repo of your choice and add the 
> i18n-track label — that will alert us to the issue automatically.
>
> I suggest you add your questions to the initial comment, and then add 
> what i'm going to say in another comment.
>
>
>
>
> Rather than just generally talk about diacritics, i think you may need 
> to be more specific about what diacritics are relevant here. Leaving 
> aside the Hawaiian example for now (which i'd like to understand 
> better), the type of diacritic you seem to be mostly concerned with 
> are those that indicate vowel sounds in scripts of type 'abjad'.  
> These scripts include Arabic, Hebrew, and Classical Syriac.  Note 
> carefully that these are scripts, not languages.  The Arabic script is 
> used to write the largest number of languages in the world, after 
> Latin script.  You can find lists of languages used Arabic and Hebrew 
> scripts at 
> https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-scripts.en.html#how-many-people
>
> However, it is important to note that not all language orthographies 
> using the Arabic script hide their diacritics.  Languages that hide 
> the diacritics include Arabic (and its dialects), Pashto, Persian, 
> Saraiki, Sindhi, and Urdu, etc.  Other languages using the Arabic 
> script always show all diacritics include Fulfulde, Hausa, Kashmiri, 
> and Wolof, etc. Other languages using the Arabic script don't actually 
> use diacritics at all to represent vowel sounds; these include Sorani, 
> Uighur, etc.
>
> It is important to also recognise that not all marks on the page that 
> look like diacritics are ignorable, even in abjads.  See this 
> description of the difference between ijam and tashkil 
> https://r12a.github.io/scripts/arab/homographs#ijam_tashkil. (It's the 
> tashkil, only, that get hidden in Arabic script.)
>
> It's also worth noting that Hebrew has 3 spelling variants, one of 
> which is possibly worth considering as an alternative to flipping 
> diacritics on and off. See 
> https://r12a.github.io/scripts/hebr/he.html#spelling. There are also 
> some diacritics that are more useful than others for disambiguating 
> sounds. If you have time, you can read more about that in the article 
> just pointed to.
>
> Classical Syriac is an abjad, but is not much used these days.  Other 
> uses of the Syriac script include for Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Turoyo 
> communities. Their orthographies generally preserve the diacritics, 
> and so are not abjads.
>
>
>
>
>
> Fine points on your Google doc:
>
> in the text
>
>  *
>
>     ملاك, pronounced malaak, means “angel”
>
>  *
>
>     مَلك, pronounced malak, is an archaic version that means “angel”
>     mostly in religious texts
>
>  *
>
>     ملك, pronounced malik, means “king”
>
> the difference between the first bullet and the second involves letter 
> changes, not diacritic changes — so it's not a good example.  I may be 
> able to come up with something better, if you need.
>
> The 3rd bullet doesn't even show the kasra diacritic that indicates 
> the i.  To contrast those properly you'd need to show:
>
> • مَلَك
> • مَلِك
>
> hope that helps
> ri
>