Translation of personal names (was: Re: XHTML Basic)

Hello Martin,
Hello Alexander,

just to swim against the tide. I never translate peopleīs names, not 
because Iīm afraid of the work to find all languages for the 
xml:lang, but I think it is simply not necessary.

I havenīt met any English speaker who pronounced for example my name 
the right way. 

That is not a matter of phonetic transcription, thatīs a matter of 
that he is not a native German speaker, but that is not really a 
matter. ;-)

I think itīs more important to recognize a name at once in other 
documents. To stay by your example:

If you see the name Deiv Reggitt in a translation and look into 
another document (news, Rec, whatever) where the name is in itīs 
original form, do you recognize it at once?

If you like to tell people, how to pronounce it, why not go the way:

<span xml:lang="en">Mark Baker</span> (pronounced: Mark Beiker) .

So that you ever give your reader the original name.


>   XHTML Basic is to be enclosed in <span xml:lang="en"> too.
Not necessarily.

>   In general it would be a good idea (for those writing the specs) to
>   indicate a name's language using <span> with xml:lang on it.
Agree.

Happy working,
Stefan 

-- 
Stefan Schumacher
Oesterberg 20                                   0172/2718968
58553 Halver                                    02353/130119
Germany
www.schumacher-netz.de

Received on Saturday, 13 April 2002 08:01:28 UTC