RE: simple language testable thing

Joe, the suggestion was to provide translations for words that are not
in the main natural language of the page.
I think most of your other points are equally true for Alt tags and
captioning. 

All the best
Lisa Seeman
 
Visit us at the UB Access website
UB Access - Moving internet accessibility
 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org] 
> Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 5:22 AM
> To: Jens Meiert
> Cc: mikba@microsoft.com; seeman@netvision.net.il; 
> y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: RE: simple language testable thing
> 
> 
> On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Jens Meiert wrote:
> 
> >> [...] that "bon mot" is an english phrase in the
> >> rich english of literature (or the literary english of the rich, 
> >> perhaps).
> >
> >Sorry, but hear ye! And hence, foreign language use is okay? Sounds 
> >like there are double standards applied; I think there must be a 
> >precise statement first, otherwise, we're all just spinning around.
> >
> >> But it isn't simple vocabulary one can expect of everyone.
> >
> >Is there any vocabulary you can? Ain't it in the nature of language, 
> >that there are blendings, differences, growth etc.? If I'd 
> be asked to 
> >use the vocabulary all my friends or colleagues do, I simply 
> wouldn't 
> >know.
> 
> What if we asked you to find a glossary of terms they do know 
> (say, your old illustrated primary school dictionary) and 
> another one, with words you use, that links to explanations 
> which only use the words that are in teh primary school dictionary?
> 
> >> I think the solution technique is the same as for complex 
> vocabulary 
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> ... use of a foreign <a href="http://example.com/k-7glossary?
> >> bon_mot">bon mot</a>, even though...
> >
> >That nips all more or less sophisticated writing in the bud, 
> ain't it? 
> >[...]
> 
> If you mean "a presentation relying on sophistry to carry an 
> air of authority", I am not sure that's a bad thing. But I 
> don't think that is actually the case. A lot of clever 
> advertising isn't actually based on complex ideas.
> 
> I also don't think it has much impact on whether complex and 
> powerful ideas can be explained. But some of us, who write 
> too much long-winded and complex text, will have to think 
> about how to write clearly.
> 
> And as I pointed out to Mike, WAI doesn't ban anything. It 
> merely points out that some stuff is inaccessible.  I am not 
> a fan of "Blue Poles" - once purchased by the Australian 
> government as the most expensive painting ever, to a large 
> outcry at the time and to plaudits later. I don't think it's 
> terribly interesting. Nor accessible. But I don't see it 
> being banned for that.
> 
> On the other hand, in a battlefield situation I want to be 
> certain that the person at the end of the chain of command 
> understands, whatever their known, hidden, or newly-acquired 
> disability. I don't see any reason to stop people being 
> engineers, nor even put big difficulties in their way, if 
> they are capable engineers but struggle with Shakespeare. 
> Language used for clear and successful comunication in the 
> modern world is generally different from language used for 
> artistic expression (although there is obviously plenty of 
> overlap). This is not new, is not restricted to english and 
> is difficult to pin down.
> 
> I get upset when my colleagues who are not native english 
> speakers assert that english is a "artistically poor and 
> restricted language, but good for technical stuff", based on 
> their experience of groups of non-native speakers with 
> different backgrounds and different levels of skill searching 
> of a common communications mechanism at conferences and 
> meetings. The english I grew up with is extremely rich in 
> expression, but often not very precise - a bit like the 
> mixture of latin and its vernacular cousins (now known as 
> french, romanian, spanish, catalan, italian, and so on) was a 
> few centuries ago, when it had a similar role.
> 
> >> ... use of a foreign <ruby class="coolGloss"><rb>bon mot</rb> 
> >> <rt>clever word or two</rt></ruby>, even though...
> >
> >CMIIW, but this is abuse of Ruby markup. -- Theoretically and to be 
> >constructive, you could better use markup like
> 
> I haven't thought really hard about the actual result markup. 
> I don't think it is an abuse of ruby, looking at the examples 
> in the specification, but I don't claim my example was of 
> perfect result markup. It ws just to illustrate an idea about 
> how all this discussion could actually have a result people can use...
> 
> >> [...] lots of literature is not accessible to everyone who 
> speaks the 
> >> base language it was written in. Which strikes me as 
> uncontroversial.
> >
> >Agreed, but it's written in its base language, ain't it? -- Last but 
> >not least, and to summarize the main issues:
> >
> >- Is this really an important issue in WAI terms [1]?
> >- What wording has to be explained, where ain't an 
> explanation needed?
> >- What way(s) of semantic highlighting should be recommended?
> >
> >If these questions (of course and above all, the first) are 
> answered, 
> >there should be a general discussion on it, not yet.
> 
> I think I agree with AL there - there are grounds for this 
> discussion being treated seriously as an issue in improving 
> accessibility, and it is hard to define a stop point or 
> minimal set of vocabulary (and language constructions). That 
> would need some thoughtful discussion and probably some more 
> collective thought.
> 
> By "ways of semantic highlighting", I am assuming you mean 
> "what should the available results look and feel like?" (I 
> might have misunderstood your term). We don't seem to agree 
> on the role of ruby markup. There are various discussions on 
> this idea in this group, other groups around W3C, work on 
> thesauri, projects putting this stuff into practice. Again, I 
> don't think we can declare consensus on any answer yet, but I 
> think we have the basis for useful discussion.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Chaals
>

Received on Monday, 9 February 2004 02:11:03 UTC