Re: Translation of i18n resources

Hello Richard,

"Richard Ishida" <ishida@w3.org> wrote:

> I have been developing a set of instructions for people wanting to translate FAQs etc on our site.  Please review and comment:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/International/2004/06/translation.html

Thanks for drafting this document.  A few comments:

- "Inform us first" - please clarify who are "we" here.  For example,
  if I want to translate "Questions & Answers: HTML, XHTML, XML and
  Control Codes" [1], who should I contact?  All of people listed in
  "Contacts" (i.e. Martin/Richard/Addison)?  Do I have to also contact
  authors (Tex & François)?  Should I send a notice to some mailing
  lists, such as w3c-translators@w3.org, public-i18n-geo@w3.org, or
  www-international@w3.org?

- "Linking to other pages" - "Please add hreflang information to all
  links that point to a document in another language than that of
  your translation."  I'm less sure about this.  I used to use the
  hreflang attribute more often, but a linked resource may be using
  language negotiation, or may adopt language negotiation later.

  For example, "FAQ: Apache language negotiation set up" [2] includes
  links to Apache's documentation, which was only available in English
  in old times but is now available in multiple languages.  Although
  Apache version 2.0 documentation is currently not available in French,
  some day they might provide a French version as well.  When I translate
  this document into French now, what should I do for a link to Apache
  version 2.0 documentation?  The linked document is indeed in another
  language(s) than that of my translation at the moment, but I cannot
  say which, and in the future the situation might change.

  So personally I don't use the hrelang attribute these days unless I'm
  absolutely sure that the linked resource is indeed written in that
  particular language and is unlikely to change in the future (e.g.
  a link to the specific language variant of language-negotiated
  resource). 

  Also what should I do when a linked resource is a multilingual
  resource?  Do I have to add hreflang="mul" or something?

  Anyway, if you advise translators to add hreflang information to
  *all* links to a document in another language, you should elaborate
  the correct usage of it.

[1] http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-controls
[2] http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-apache-lang-neg

Regards,
-- 
Masayasu Ishikawa / mimasa@w3.org
W3C - World Wide Web Consortium

Received on Tuesday, 29 June 2004 04:53:01 UTC