- From: Lois Wakeman <lois@lois.co.uk>
- Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:13:06 -0000
- To: "WAI list" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Jukka wrote: >It's a difficult and intriguing question how far we should go in language >markup. Should a proper name be indicated as being in a particular language? >For proper names as well as other words, there's a continuous spectrum of >adaptation to another language, ranging from purely "foreign expressions", >like a casual occurrence of a foreign name or term, up to completely adapted >loanwords, often adapted through considerable changes in phonetics and >spelling. And quite often the spelling is still foreign, although the >pronunciation differs considerably from the original. You bring up very good points here. As a native English speaker, a vast part of my vocabulary is derived from other languages (hence the nightmare of learning to spell correctly!). Most words I use are accepted as "proper" English, even if perhaps they were borrowed quite recently from elsewhere and may still be pronounced in a way that reflects their origin. Perhaps less of a problem for pronunciation, but definitely for understanding, can be different usages / grammar in UK and US English, for example. I cannot even begin to think about how this might be tackled! As language is a moving target (except in those countries with a strictly controlled vocabulary), so will be the way we attempt to assist its understanding. Lois Wakeman ------------------------------------------------------ http://lois.co.uk http://siteusability.com http://communicationarts.co.uk
Received on Thursday, 21 November 2002 09:13:33 UTC