I18n checklist: language

[fsteeg]

This is a self-review checklist based on the Internationalization Best Practices for Spec Developers.

(All lines seemed relevant for us here, I suggest we strikeout things that turn out not to be.)

See also issue #52, PR #108 and notes at https://etherpad.lobid.org/p/reconciliation-i18n.

Check marks indicate requirements that are fulfilled by this spec. Add comments to describe conformance.

Language basics

1. It should be possible to associate a language with any piece of localizable text or natural language content. more
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2. Where possible, there should be a way to label natural language changes in inline text. more
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3. Consider whether it is useful to express the intended linguistic audience of a resource, in addition to specifying the language used for text processing. more
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4. A language declaration that indicates the text-processing language for a range of text must associate a single language value with a specific range of text. more
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5. Use the HTML lang and XML xml:lang language attributes where appropriate to identify the text processing language, rather than creating a new attribute or mechanism. more
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6. It should be possible to associate a metadata-type language declaration (which indicates the intended use of the resource rather than the language of a specific range of text) with multiple language values. more
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7. Attributes that express the language of external resources should not use the HTML lang and XML xml:lang language attributes, but should use a different attribute when they represent metadata (which indicates the intended use of the resource rather than the language of a specific range of text). more
   I don't think we link to any external resources, so this should not apply to us

Defining language values

1. Values for language declarations must use BCP 47. more
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2. Refer to BCP 47, not to its constituent parts, such as RFC 5646 or RFC 4647. more
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3. Be specific about what level of conformance you expect for language tags: BCP 47 defines two levels of conformance, "valid" and "well-formed". more
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4. Specifications may require implementations to check if language tags are "valid", but in most circumstances should only require that the language tags be "well-formed". more
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5. Specifications should require content and content authors to use "valid" language tags. more
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6. Specifications SHOULD refer to the IANA Language Subtag Registry instead of providing lists of codes extracted from ISO 639, ISO 3166, or other standards. more
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7. Avoid creating a list of valid or supported language tags, language subtags, or locales. more
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Declaring language

1. The specification should indicate how to define the default text-processing language for the resource as a whole. more
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2. Content within the resource should inherit the language of the text-processing declared at the resource level, unless it is specifically overridden. more
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3. Consider whether it is necessary to have separate declarations to indicate the text-processing language versus metadata about the expected use of the resource. more
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4. If there is only one language declaration for a resource, and it has more than one language tag as a value, it must be possible to identify the default text-processing language for the resource. more
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5. By default, blocks of content should inherit any text-processing language set for the resource as a whole. more
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6. It should be possible to indicate a change in language for blocks of content where the language changes. more
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7. It should be possible to indicate language for spans of inline text where the language changes. more
   Since we return highly structured JSON and have a mechanism to set the language for each object, I don't think this applies to us

Identifying the language of strings (TBD)

Detecting & matching language

1. Reference BCP47 for language tag matching. more
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