Re: agenda+ Diacritics in WCAG

Update: They’re reviewing what Richard sent, and are awaiting some 
survey results and need to integrate those. They will then compose a set 
of GitHub issues to formalize the remaining questions they have and 
share them with us (so we can track), and won't attend our meeting 
today.

Fuqiao

On 2026-04-09 07:22, Martin J. Dürst wrote:
> Hello everybody,
> 
> On 2026-04-08 20:08, Andrew Cunningham wrote:
>> On Tue, 7 Apr 2026 at 03:56, Addison Phillips <addisoni18n@gmail.com> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> It would be useful to know what they are actually trying to achieve.
>>> Sometimes "removing diacritics" is a naive thing that (for example)
>>> English speakers try to do (because, generally speaking, they are
>>> affectations in English).
> 
> Exactly. I think many on this list get somewhat confused because of the 
> word 'diacritics'. My assumption would be that they were looking at a 
> phenomenon (languages that in their written form have more or less 
> information, where the form with less information is the 'usual' form, 
> but the form with more information is helpful in an accessibility 
> context because it makes it easier for some people to read). The actual 
> graphical expression of the information was mostly in form of 
> additional marks, and they then called that 'diacritics' because that's 
> a word they were familiar with.
> 
> Examples that come to my mind that haven't yet been mentioned:
> - Stress marks in Russian (used for learners who don't know on which 
> syllable the stress is, potentially helpful in an accessibility 
> context).
> - Lengthening marks in Japanese written in Latin (e.g. Taro Sato vs. 
> Tarō Satō), similar to Hawai'ian. They may help foreigners with a bit 
> of knowledge of Japanese.
> - Ruby in Japanese (these are extremely far from diacritics,... but 
> nevertheless can be very helpful in accessibility contexts)
> 
> So the main point in the common discussion should be to look at the 
> purpose. Terminology should to be cleaned up, but that should be 
> secondary.
> 
> 
>> I'd assume they are referring to languages that normally aren't 
>> marked, but
>> can be marked for pedagogical reasons or to add clarity. Arabic, 
>> Lithuanian
>> and a range of African languages come to mind.
>> 
>> There are no lists of such languages. It would also have to be 
>> orthography
>> specific not just language specific.
>> 
>> The only language independent way of achieving this that would also 
>> work
>> with any tech stack would be having both versions of the text stored 
>> and
>> switching between them.
> 
> Fully agree.
> 
> Regards,    Martin.
> 
>>> The meaning of "diacritic" itself is complex. Some diacritics alter 
>>> or
>>> hint the pronunciation of the base letter. Other diacritics are used 
>>> to
>>> form an entirely different letter. Diacritics are not just used with 
>>> the
>>> Latin script. There is also the tendency to confuse "combining mark"
>>> with "diacritic". Without knowing what or why, it's difficult to make
>>> progress--and there might be better approaches than removing 
>>> information
>>> from the text.
>>> 
>>> Look forward to the conversation.
>>> 
>>> Addison
>>> 
>>> On 4/6/2026 5:39 AM, Fuqiao Xue wrote:
>>>> The WCAG 3 Text & Wording subgroup is defining use of diacritics for
>>>> languages "where they are optional". Here's their current
>>>> draft/working document for that provision:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z_Xuava_GS-Fwfk4Hg8KYDr1WcjgcuswKmTELukzvwo/edit?usp=sharing
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> They are asking us to help them on principles or practices that may
>>>> guide this work.
>>>> 
>>>> Some of the specific concerns are around:
>>>> 
>>>> 1. Identifying the applicable languages. Is there a list, or
>>>> especially some programmatic standard to identify those?
>>>> 2. How assistive technology actually handles (or should handle!) 
>>>> cases
>>>> like this. Is requiring the full-diacritic version the right answer?
>>>> 3. Expectations around burden/effort. It was brought up that having
>>>> both versions in a datastore, and a user-visible toggle, is a big 
>>>> change.
>>>> 
>>>> They are happy to answer questions, or have a joint call to talk 
>>>> about
>>>> this.
>>>> 
>>>> Any thoughts?
>>>> 
>>> --
>>> Internationalization is not a feature.
>>> It is an architecture.

Received on Thursday, 9 April 2026 01:13:33 UTC