Quotation marks in multilingual text

[resending to public-digipub list, please don't reply to previous attempt]


There is a bug[1] raised against HTML5 to change the CSS used to render 
quotation marks around the q element.

Appropriate quotation marks vary from language to language. The bug was 
raised because the current spec text puts quote marks outside the q 
element that reflect the language of the quoted text, rather than that 
of the surrounding text.

In trying to come up with a better set of selectors, we ran into a 
problem and a question related to nested quotations.

Here's my question for the typography experts in the IG: If these rules 
apply for which quotation marks to use in which language:

Language    top level    nested
Swiss French,    « »        ‹ ›
English        " "        ' '
German        „ “        ‚ ‘


then, which of the following would one expect to see, if each language 
change marks a new quotation (ie. <p>un <q>two <q>drei <q>vier</q> 
fünf</q> six</q> sept<p>):

un «two 'drei ‚vier‘ fünf' six» sept

or

un «two "drei „vier“ fünf" six» sept


I think the latter, but it seems difficult to achieve using the CSS 
quotes property if that specifies two levels of quotation marks.

Cheers,
RI





[1] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13398

Received on Monday, 3 March 2014 17:47:58 UTC