Markup for foreign languages

[David Trimboli]

In a text, I might want to include a foreign language term. In print,
this is typically shown with italics. For instance (asterisks
represent italics):

'I thought it was only a kind of *cram,* such as the Dale-men make
for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf.
'So it is,' they answered. 'But we call it *lembas* or waybread,
and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more
pleasant than *cram,* by all accounts.'

Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to represent
this? <EM>? Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

David
Stardate 4884.4

[Frances Del Rio]

David Trimboli wrote:

In a text, I might want to include a foreign language term. In print,
this is typically shown with italics. For instance (asterisks
represent italics):

'I thought it was only a kind of *cram,* such as the Dale-men make
for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf.
'So it is,' they answered. 'But we call it *lembas* or waybread,
and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more
pleasant than *cram,* by all accounts.'

Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to represent
this? <EM>? Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

as far as I know, <i> and <em> will both do the job... (if there is a
difference between the two I don't know of it...) as far as usage,
that's totally up to you... in the 'normal' world, italics is usu. used
both for emphasis and to quote words from foreign languages (and other
things also, like quoting titles of books..) HTH, good luck.. Frances

[Neal]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:42:05 GMT, David Trimboli <Su****@hotmail .com>
wrote:

In a text, I might want to include a foreign language term. In print,
this is typically shown with italics. For instance (asterisks
represent italics):

'I thought it was only a kind of *cram,* such as the Dale-men make
for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf.
'So it is,' they answered. 'But we call it *lembas* or waybread,
and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more
pleasant than *cram,* by all accounts.'

Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to represent
this? <EM>? Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

(SuStel, Human Hol DaghItlh'a'? Haven't heard from you in a long while,
David. Pop me an email...)

Anyway, em should only be used when, if you're reading the text, you'd
emphasize the word. Like:

<p>You should <em>never</em> touch the red button.</p>

And since many UA's don't do italics, and some do nothing, and none are
really required to to italics for that anyway, it's not the best choice.

I divide italic situations into 3 categories.

1) Emphasized words - em - or other uses which match an existing markup.

2) Purely deciration - use CSS

3) Stuff that doesn't exactly match existing markup. Here, I'd actually
use <i>. The setting-off is not for presentational purposes, it's for
setting off a term.

CSS italics (using span) wouldn't be wrong, mind you. But in no-CSS
renderings that can produce italics, you still want the italics, so I go
for <i>.

[Neal]

Frances Del Rio wrote:

as far as I know, <i> and <em> will both do the job... (if there is a
difference between the two I don't know of it...)

See my previous post. em is for emphasis, i is to make the text italic.
Not realy the same.

[Lars Eighner]

In our last episode,
<xj************ *********@news4 .srv.hcvlny.cv. net>, the lovely and
talented David Trimboli broadcast on
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:

In a text, I might want to include a foreign language term. In
print, this is typically shown with italics. For instance
(asterisks represent italics): 'I thought it was only a kind of *cram,* such as the Dale-men make
for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf. 'So it is,' they
answered. 'But we call it *lembas* or waybread,
and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more
pleasant than *cram,* by all accounts.' Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to represent
this? <EM>? Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

HTML 4.01 (strict) doesn't have an appropriate element for this. I
suggest you use SPAN with an appropriate class such as "foreign" and
with an appropriate lang attribute. This may make it easier to
convert the document in case want to use a different markup language
at another time. You can then use styles to get the proper presentation,
which will be italics if the context is roman and roman if the context
is italics.
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- ei*****@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
If it wasn't for muscle spasms, I wouldn't get any exercise at all.

[David Trimboli]

"Lars Eighner" <ei*****@io.com > wrote in message
news:sl******** *************@g oodwill.io.com. ..

In our last episode,
<xj************ *********@news4 .srv.hcvlny.cv. net>, the lovely and
talented David Trimboli broadcast on
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:

In a text, I might want to include a foreign language term. In
print, this is typically shown with italics. For instance
(asterisks represent italics):

'I thought it was only a kind of *cram,* such as the Dale-men
make
for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf. 'So it is,' they
answered. 'But we call it *lembas* or waybread,
and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is
more
pleasant than *cram,* by all accounts.'

Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to
represent
this? <EM>? Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something
else?

HTML 4.01 (strict) doesn't have an appropriate element for this. I
suggest you use SPAN with an appropriate class such as "foreign" and
with an appropriate lang attribute. This may make it easier to
convert the document in case want to use a different markup language
at another time. You can then use styles to get the proper
presentation,
which will be italics if the context is roman and roman if the
context
is italics.

This makes sense to me. It's structurally marked up, but it's
entirely up to my styles to set it off. Thanks!

David
Stardate 4884.4

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, David Trimboli wrote:

'So it is,' they answered. 'But we call it *lembas* or waybread,
and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is
more pleasant than *cram,* by all accounts.'
Only moments ago, while looking for something else, I stumbled on
http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/Generat...NT_ITEM_TYPE=0
Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to represent
this? <EM>?
I really don't think so.
Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

<span lang="whatever" > would be impeccably correct. (In conjunction
with an appropriate stylesheet, presumably).

I'd quite possibly plump for <i lang="whatever" > , on the grounds that
presentation of foreign terms in italics is conventional. But unless
emphasis it genuinely intended, the use of <em ...> would be perverse.

[David Trimboli]

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote in message
news:Pi******** *************** *******@ppepc56 .ph.gla.ac.uk.. .

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, David Trimboli wrote:

Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to
represent
this? <EM>?

I really don't think so.

Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

<span lang="whatever" > would be impeccably correct. (In
conjunction
with an appropriate stylesheet, presumably).

I'd quite possibly plump for <i lang="whatever" > , on the grounds
that
presentation of foreign terms in italics is conventional. But
unless
emphasis it genuinely intended, the use of <em ...> would be
perverse.

Well, I only suggested <EM> because of a code example in the specs
(http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/...html#h-8.1.2):

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<HTML lang="fr">
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Un document multilingue</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
....Interpreted as French...
<P lang="es">...In terpreted as Spanish...
<P>...Interpret ed as French again...
<P>...French text interrupted by<EM lang="ja">some
Japanese</EM>French begins here again...
</BODY>
</HTML>

The example doesn't explain why it uses <EM>. I was thinking that the
use of italics in print for foreign words might be an example of a
special kind of emphasis.

<I lang="whatever" > is an interesting idea, though.

David
Stardate 4884.6

[Barbara de Zoete]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:42:05 GMT, David Trimboli <Su****@hotmail .com>
wrote:

In a text, I might want to include a foreign language term. In print,
this is typically shown with italics. For instance (asterisks
represent italics):

Sticking to strict HTML 4.01, what would be the best way to represent
this? <EM>? Is this use considered emphasis, or is it something else?

I've struggled on this for quite a while now. Dutch language uses many
foreign words especially when writing about computers or the www.
I've solved this at first by using <i lang="en">, then switched to <em
lang="en">, because I thought it to bemore appropriate with HTML 4.01.
Didn't like that either in the end.
Now I use <span lang="en"> and in my stylesheet span[lang]
{ font-style:oblique; }. Not sure what I'll be using tomorrow though ;-)
--
Webontwerp <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html >
Zweefvliegen <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html>
Blog <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html>
DTD <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/dtd/not_so_strict.d td>

[Andy Dingley]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 01:41:12 +0000, "Alan J. Flavell"
<fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

I'd quite possibly plump for <i lang="whatever" > , on the grounds that
presentation of foreign terms in italics is conventional. But unless
emphasis it genuinely intended, the use of <em ...> would be perverse.

I'd use <em> in a dictionary context, <i> otherwise.

What should the lang attribute be ? Is lang="x-elvish" the best, or
is there a whole taxonomy of Middle Earth linguistics stuck down in
the depths of ISO3166 and Unicode ? (I don't really want to know
this)