RE: Examples of language changes in websites

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Montgomery, Gordon
Sent: 04 December 2003 22:50
To: 'Kerstin Goldsmith'; Craddock, Michael P
Cc: Yvette P. Hoitink; Doyle Burnett; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: RE: Examples of language changes in websites


Surely the deciding factors are:
1. context
2. audience

Firstly, any ambiguous words should be marked up - not only in the
accessibility sense but where those words are not core to the language
in question - and for all possible user types. The markup should be:
<foreign>...</foreign> or some such meaningful tag.


RI >> Actually there is an existing mechanism.  Use the lang and/or
xml:lang attribute on a tag that surrounds the text.



To decide if a word or phase is foreign to the language context it is 
written in, one criteria would be to see if the author's spell and
grammar checker picks it up. That's, of course, if the author does not
know themselves that the word is "foreign" [in the broadest sense of
that word].

So: looking at the ambiguity of /résumé/

1. Context:
When a user has their browser set to "french" then all the french words
around our "ambiguous" word should guide how a screen reader reads the
"ambiguous" word - i.e. as regular french

Conversely, "le weekend" is pronounced with French intonation by French
people.

Where /résumé/ appears in an English language context then by default
the local language intonation should apply e.g. English.

2. Audience:
When /résumé/ appears in a non-French language context then the audience
rule applies. 
There needs to be not only a language setting but and
internationalization  setting that says: "pronounce borrowed foreign
words with their "native/foreign" or "local" intontation.


RI >> Doesn't the local pronunciation come from just not marking this up
as a different language?



Finally, usually as a block of text is translated from one language to
another the foreign/borrowed/ambiguous words remain the same.


RI>> I think that is the prerogative of the translator.  They may feel
it is better to use a completely different solution to get the point
across.  That is part of the process of translation.


This situation is only trumped when the context language is the same as
the ambiguous word or there is a more commonly used local word in the
context 
language that better captures the sense of the word for the context
audience.

[i]US English > [ii]UK English > [iii]French > [iv]German

[i]    Where is your résumé?
[ii]    Where is your CV?
[iii]   Ou est ton curriculum vitae? [missing accents]
[iv]   Wo ist dein Lebenslauf?

Thanks, 
Gordon 
--------------------- 
Gordon Montgomery 
Usability Manager 
+508 253 2405 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kerstin Goldsmith [mailto:kerstin.goldsmith@oracle.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 5:15 PM
To: Craddock, Michael P
Cc: Yvette P. Hoitink; Doyle Burnett; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: Re: Examples of language changes in websites


I think we need to bring this back out to the question "in question,"
though - here, we have only solved one small problem.  Can we legislate
this kind of change?  And, if yes, or if no, how do we answer Richard
Ishida's question: what constitutes language change that MUST be marked
up, and what constitutes language change that SHOULD be marked up, etc.

-kerstin

Craddock, Michael P wrote:

We've run into terminology issues here at Boeing, not as a screen reader
problem but as a usability issue, and have recently switched from
"sitemap" (one word, which is common) to "text index" which we found
more commonly used and descriptive. Maybe this small change could help? 

Thank you,
michaelcraddock
The Boeing Company
multimediadesignengineer
p 312.544.2931 | c 312.371.8134 | f 312.544.2082 | w www.boeing.com/

"doog si efil"-mirror me

-----Original Message-----
From: Yvette P. Hoitink [mailto:y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl] 
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 1:23 PM
To: 'Doyle Burnett'; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: RE: Examples of language changes in websites


In Dutch, the word 'sitemap' (one word) is used a lot. This is yet
another
example of the Dutch habit of glueing words together, which is
gramatically
correct in Dutch. This is so normal for me I didn't even recognize this
as
not being entirely English...

Dutchmen pronounce 'sitemap' with the English pronounciation. It is not
(yet) in the Dutch standard wordlist. Just like the word
'cadeaushoppen',
this is another example of a word whose language cannot be identified
within
the current HTML standards since it's neither Dutch nor English.

Yvette Hoitink
CEO Heritas, Enschede, The Netherlands
E-mail: y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl

  
-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org 
[mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Doyle Burnett
Sent: donderdag 4 december 2003 20:00 

I believe the term is site map (two words) and yes, if 
written as a single word, sitemap - screen readers will not 
pronounce the word as would be desired.  

Doyle


On 12/4/03 8:17 AM, "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn@idyllmtn.com> wrote:

    
On Thursday, December 4, 2003, at 04:44 AM, Ineke van der 
      
Maat wrote:
    
Sitemap is not an official word  in German or Dutch and can be 
pronounced by screenreaders in Dutch as sietemap (ie as ea in sea 
,just like bietensap or fietstas).
        
English screenreaders sometimes have said "sigh tuh map", for this 
word, rather than "site map".

--Kynn

Received on Friday, 5 December 2003 04:57:48 UTC