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Re: Multi-lingual experiment - a call for action

• From: "Laurent Bossavit" <laurent@m...>
• To: "Xml-Dev" <xml-dev@x...>
• Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 04:22:19 +0200

Didier wrote :

> I am proposing a group effort to create a multi-lingual document so that we
> can concretely see what is a multi-lingual document instead of talking about
> the subject in the abstract.

Need help with French ? I'll volunteer...

> what is required for the experiment:
> a) a translation of the DTD into other languages
> b) a translation of the content into other languages

Hmmm... Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but what is the use 
of translating the DTD ? Won't you end up with documents that need to 
be processed by an XML application specific to each language ? If we 
were talking about Schemas, it would make more sense to me - IIRC 
Schema validation has provisions for making equivalence between 
element names, so that a translated element name could properly map 
to its translations.

Also, your sample document doesn't provide much "content" to 
translate. Given the (implied) context, I'm assuming that the title 
should not be translated, unless of course the item concerns a 
translated version of the work. I've taken the liberty of adding a 
"description" element to work on.

>From what I gather of Appendix B to the XML 1.0 spec, french 
"accents" are not allowed in element names - though I'm not quite 
sure... For safety's sake I didn't use any, although I find the 
restriction irritating (a bad start already !). A quick review of the 
XML Schema TR leads me to believe diacritics *can* be used in element 
names.  

The most important question, though, is what kind of manipulations 
you want to be able to perform on such "multi-lingual documents" ? 
Depending on the task - retrieving the version appropriate to readers 
of different origins, assisting with machine translation, or 
providing a "corpus" of translations for literary or academic 
purposes, to name but a few examples - might require very different 
structures and/or solutions.

Meanwhile, please accept this contribution -

<!DOCTYPE xmldev-essai [
<!ELEMENT xmldev-essai(objet)+ >
<!ELEMENT objet (titre, auteur, editeur, prix, description) >
<!ATTLIST objet  xml:lang CDATA #REQUIRED >
<!ELEMENT titre (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT auteur (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT editeur (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT prix (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT description (#PCDATA) >
<!ATTLIST prix devise CDATA #REQUIRED>
]>
<xmldev-essai>
<objet xml:lang="français">
<titre>STL Tutorial</titre>
<auteur>David Musser</auteur>
<editeur>Addison Wesley</editeur>
<prix devise="can">54.50</prix>
<description>Introduction à la bibliothèque d'objets standard 
STL</description>
</objet>
</xmldev-essai>


========================================
Laurent Bossavit     -     Ingénieur R&D
>>>        laurent@m...        <<<
>>            ICQ#39281367            <<
MultiMania     http://www.multimania.fr/
========================================

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• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: Multi-lingual experiment - a call for action
    • From: "Didier PH Martin" <martind@n...>
  • Re: Multi-lingual experiment - a call for action
    • From: "Frank Boumphrey" <bckman@i...>
  • Re: Multi-lingual experiment - a call for action
    • From: Bob Kline <bkline@r...>

• References:
  • Multi-lingual experiment - a call for action
    • From: "Didier PH Martin" <martind@n...>

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