Re: [css3-lists] [css3-speech] Purpose of the module

On Jun 1, 2011, at 11:45 AM, timeless <timeless@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Daniel Weck <daniel.weck@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello, please review this new section:
>> 
>> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-speech/#lists
> 
>> decimal
>>  This list item style corresponds to numbers beginning from 1. These numbers are spoken as-is by the speech synthesizer, in the user's language.
> 
> <user's language>
> 
>> lower-latin, lower-alpha, upper-latin, upper-alpha
>>  These list item styles correspond to ASCII alphabetical characters (e.g. [a, b, c, ... z] or [A, B, C, ... Z]). They are spoken as-is by the speech synthesizer, using the document language.
> 
> If the list goes a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z,
> and the document language is Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Indic, or
> anything not Latin, I don't see how this works.
> I suppose the simplest case for discussion is Greek which has 'A' and
> 'B' but not 'C'...., it isn't technically a Latin derivative but it's
> close enough.
> 

I assume the intent here is that the letters should be pronounced using the names most familiar to the reader of the document, e.g. To avoid speaking English letter names in an otherwise French document. 


> I'm not really sure it's a good idea to have lists which are using a
> fixed element set be read differently document to document based on
> document language when numbers aren't.
> 

But the numbers will be read differently, 1 being one in an English document, eins in a German document and ichi or hitotsu in Japanese. The trouble is that numbers map into every language practically considered and Latin letters do not. 

Given the visual presentation of the letters will be a,b,c,d,e… does it make sense to try to map them for other scripts?

One could say 'They are spoken as-is by the synthesizer, using the document script's names for  the letters, when said script is derived from the latin alphabet, otherwise the English letter names are used.'

But

Do we always know the script?
Where is there a definitive list of which scripts derive from the Latin alphabet?
Are there any derived alphabets which omit any of the 26 Latin letters in modern usage?
Is English really an acceptable fallback?

Maybe one of our Japanese speakers can comment on whether it would be better to try to map, something like

a -> ア
b -> ビ
c -> シ
d -> ディ
...
t -> ティ

What would a Japanese speaker do faced with a list with Latin counters?

Received on Thursday, 2 June 2011 19:33:49 UTC