Note: This Activity Statement is currently being updated, in preparation for the AC meeting in Santa Clara in November.
The goal of the Internationalization (I18n) Activity is to ensure that W3C's formats and protocols are open to all of the world's languages, writing systems, character codes and local conventions.
I18n advises W3C Working Groups, reviews W3C publications, coordinates with the Unicode Technical Committee, the IETF, ISO committees, and the localization industry. I18n increases awareness of internationalization issues via conferences, workshops and articles. I18n produces specifications such as the Character Model for the World Wide Web, Web Services Internationalization Usage Scenarios, and Ruby Annotation Markup. I18n provides upfront input to Working Groups and reviews Last Call Working Drafts on a wide range of topics, including Unicode character normalization, international typographic requirements, script issues in text-to-speech implementations, internationalization and localization requirements for schemas, usage scenarios and requirements for the internationalization of Web services, implementation of international resource identifiers, and many more.
For the curious, "I18n" is shorthand for the first, last, and 18 middle characters in the word "Internationalization."
Felix Sasaki left the team at the end of February, and was not replaced due to the current financial situation.
The Core Working Group continued to provide a variety of formal and informal advice to W3C Working Groups and external parties, including specification reviews.
The Japanese Layout Task Force published Requirements for Japanese Text Layout (日本語組版処理の要件) in June, in English and Japanese. This is an important achievement. It describes requirements for Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and XSL-FO. For non-Japanese speakers it provides access for the first time to a wealth of detailed and authoritative information about Japanese typesetting. The document is mainly based on a standard for Japanese layout, JIS X 4051 and its authors include key contributors to that standard. However, it also addresses areas which are not covered by JIS X 4051. Task Force members report that the document has met with significant praise from Japanese and worldwide experts outside the W3C. The publication has been followed by a number of dedicated articles and talks, and the Japan Printing Society is planning to dedicate a special session to it. Since publication, the Task Force has already made significant advances on the development of a fourth part to the Note, and it hopes to republish the extended Note in March of next year. Significantly, although the authoritative version of the document was produced in English and there was regular input and review in English, the document was developed by a core of Japanese experts working mainly in Japanese. The process put in place to support production of the document in two languages appears to have worked very well.
The Core Working Group also published a Working Group Note, Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts. This document describes techniques for the use of HTML markup and CSS style sheets when creating content in languages that use right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Thaana, Urdu, etc. It builds on (but also goes beyond) markup needed to supplement the Unicode bidirectional algorithm. To complement this document, substantially improved versions of the tutorial Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts and the article What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup were also published, along with a new article, Using Unicode controls for bidi text.
During this period, the IETF produced a new version of BCP 47, where RFC 5646 Tags for Identifying Languages now replaces the former RFC 4646. Both authors of RFC 5646 are Internationalization Core Working Group participants. RFC 5646 makes it possible to use over 7,000 three-letter ISO 639-3 language codes, in addition to the 2 letter codes that have been in use for some time. It also introduces 220 'extended language' subtags, mainly for backwards compatibility. The Working Group is working on both updating the existing article introducing language tags, and production of a new article to help users choose and compose language tags in the face of the various types of subtag that are now available and the sheer number of primary language subtags.
In other areas related to guidelines, education and outreach, the Core Working Group has redeveloped its test pages and pages describing the results for major browsers, has modified numerous articles and tutorials based on user feedback, and has improved the handling of translations of Internationalization pages and added over 50 new translations of internationalization articles. The test pages have been developed in a format that allows for easier maintenance and is based on approaches used for CSS and HTML tests, making them easier to integrate with other test suites. Numerous new tests have been developed or significantly upgraded (for example, those related to web fonts and vertical text) and all tests are being extended to cover HTML4.01, XHTML 1.1, and XHTML 1.0 served as both HTML and XML. The tests have already been used by several major browser development teams to check and improve internationalization capabilities of their implementations. In addition, the Working Group has put efforts into producing new guidelines for specification developers on dealing with time zones and implementing support for right-to-left text, and has converted the draft of Requirements for String Identity Matching and String Indexing to a WG Note as a historical record.
Talks on the work of the group were delivered at WWW2009, Madrid, Localization World, Berlin, the University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam, AGIS '09 in Limerick, and to two development groups at the BBC in London,
The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Interest Group continued to provide help to developers for implementing ITS in their tools. The group continued its work in creating ITS rules for popular formats and reviewing emerging technologies for ITS adoption. It looked at the relation to other formats used in localization, such as XLIFF, and several implementations of XLIFF extraction/merge processes driven by ITS have been implemented, including one using XSLT.
A proposal was submitted for the Activity to coordinate a Thematic Network in 2010-2011, under the European Commission's PSP ICT program. We are currently in the final part of the negotiation stage. The project will bring together 20 European partners and the public from a wide range of stakeholders to discuss the state of standards and best practices relating to the Multilingual Web, and produce recommendations for where to focus future work.
The Core Working Group will continue to provide reviews, advice and educational materials as needed. In particular, it will continue to review internationalization features of the HTML5 specification, to move documents currently in draft form to completion, and to develop additional guidelines for specification developers. The group will also need to be extended or rechartered at the end of the year.
If there is no obstacle to the conclusion of negotiations relating to the European Commission project, we will begin setting up the project infrastructure and organizing the first set of meetings, including a workshop on the current state of standards and best practices relating to the multilingual Web. Associated work will also begin on the development of an internationalization checker tool, a curriculum for basic internationalization training for content developers, and the gathering of further results for the internationalization test suite.
The Japanese Layout Taskforce aims to bring it's work on an extension to Requirements for Japanese Text Layout to a close, and the Internationalization Tag Set Interest Group will continue to promote the adoption of the ITS Recommendation within and outside of W3C, and gather information for potential additional data categories.
Talks are planned for the Internationalization & Unicode Conference in San Jose.
| Group | Chair | Team Contact | Charter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internationalization Core Working Group (participants) | Addison Phillips | Richard Ishida | Chartered until 31 December 2009 |
| Internationalization (I18n) Interest Group | Martin Dürst | Richard Ishida | Chartered until 31 December 2009 |
| Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Interest Group | Yves Savourel | Chartered until 31 December 2009 |
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