RE: Proposed changes to FAQ: Why use the language attribute?

Richard,

You have a go from me on this.

Russ 

-----Original Message-----
From: public-i18n-geo-request@w3.org [mailto:public-i18n-geo-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 10:59 AM
To: GEO
Subject: Proposed changes to FAQ: Why use the language attribute?


Deborah, others,

I think we need to tweak the following FAQ:

http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-why


This is due to refinements we have subsequently made wrt terminology and the way we see language declaration. I also don't think we should get drawn into the question of whether language is declared in an attribute or in HTTP, etc. or the difference between primary vs text-processing language, etc. So I propose the following changes.

   
[1]
Add a related link and further reading link to Tutorial: Declaring Language in XHTML and HTML http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/language-decl/  which describes how to go about declaring language. Also add a link to this in the first para around the text "tagged and tagged correctly".

[2]
I suggest to change the second para as follows.

Original:

The language attribute unambiguously specifies the 'natural language' of web page content. It should always be used to indicate the primary language of the web page (in the main page container element). If the language changes within the main page container element this should also be reflected in a sub container element, eg., span, div, td, p, etc.

Proposed:

Language declarations specify the 'natural language' of web page content. A declaration should always be used to indicate the language of a web page as a whole. If the language changes within the main page container element this should also be reflected in a sub-container element, eg., span, div, td, p, etc.

[3]
Under "Accessibility", change "The language attribute assists" to "Language information assists"

[4]
Under Page Rendering, change "CSS2 uses the language attribute " to "CSS2 uses language information "

Please let me know if you disagree with these changes.  If I hear nothing by Tuesday of next week I'll make them and upload the doc.

Cheers,
RI

============
Richard Ishida
W3C

contact info:
http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/ 

W3C Internationalization:
http://www.w3.org/International/ 

Publication blog:
http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/

 

Received on Thursday, 18 August 2005 18:09:55 UTC