This article is based on text that was originally published in the WG Note, Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content. The Note will be updated in due course, at which time the material will be removed from the Note.

The article discusses some of the pros and cons for signalling the language of a page which a link points to, if that page is not in the same language as the current content. It also looks at how people have done this in the past using the hreflang attribute.

Because of its history, the article has not been through the normal review process, but comments can be sent using the feedback form.

A future version of the article may look at alternative approaches and implementations, such as those used for European languages.

The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0. ITS 2.0 makes it easier to integrate automated processing of human language into core Web technologies. ITS 2.0 focuses on HTML, XML-based formats in general, and can leverage processing based on the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF), as well as the Natural Language Processing Interchange Format (NIF). Comments are welcome through 10 September.

The pre-final Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 specification is already getting uptake in the machine translation community. At the Machine Translation Summit XIV (2-6 September, Nice), ITS 2.0 will be introduced in a presentation, a panel and as part of the META-NET booth. MT Summit is an annual event of the machine translation community, including keynote speeches by renowned experts in the field of Machine Translation, panel discussions and presentations of submitted and invited papers organized in two program tracks – research and commercial/user. Register now to learn about the presence and future of automatic multilingual content processing on the Web.

The META-FORUM 2013 will provide an overview of the pre-final ITS 2.0 specification and other recent developments around automated processing of multilingual Web content. registration is free, but the number of participants is limited – get your seat soon! A call for active participation in META Exhibition and LT Industry Session (deadline 16. August) provides an opportunity to demonstrate other technologies around multilingual Web content.

Predefined Counter Styles describes numbering systems used by various cultures around the world and can be used as a reference for those wishing to create their own user-defined counter styles for CSS.

The document provides support for people using the CSS Counter Styles Level 3, which has just moved to Last Call. It will be published, after review, as a WG Note. It will be updated on an ongoing basis as needs arise.

A set of tests are also currently being developed, along with results to show built-in support and support via counter-styles definitions for the counter-styles defined here.

A report is now available summarizing the Workshop on Richer Internationalization for eBooks, which took place 4 June in Tokyo.

Participants discussed topics such as how CSS Paged Media spec can already go a long way to support ebooks, various aspects of ruby annotation that are not yet addressed, how to handle ideographic characters that are not in the character encoding, how JavaScript can be relevant to ebooks (especially since internationalization features are currently being added to the core language), and the need to increase the availability and usability of Far Eastern fonts for ebooks, etc. The report also includes the results of a survey sent to Workshop participants immediately following the workshop to rank issues that were discussed.

The Workshop was Hosted by Keio University, and sponsored by Intel as well as W3C organization sponsor Google.

(Learn more about W3C’s new Digital Publishing Activity, how to get involved in the Digital Publishing Interest Group, and the agenda of the workshop on Publishing and the Open Web Platform, which takes place in September in Paris; position paper deadline 15 July.)

Videos of speakers at the MultilingualWeb Workshop in Rome are now linked from the workshop report. They can also be accessed from the Videolectures site.

The two-day workshop surveyed and shared information about currently available best practices and standards that can help content creators and localizers address the needs of the multilingual Web, including the Semantic Web. Attendees also heard about gaps that need to be addressed, and enjoyed opportunities to network and share information between the various different communities involved in enabling the multilingual Web. Half of the second day was dedicated to an Open Space discussion with breakouts.

The workshop was sponsored by the EU-funded QTLaunchPad project and Verisign. “During the W3C Rome Workshop we were able to identify the gaps holding organizations back from achieving a truly multilingual Internet and discuss best practices that will further our collective goal of achieving a web void of cultural borders”, said Pat Kane, senior vice president of Naming and Directory Services at Verisign.

The recently announced Internationalization Tag Set 2.0 showcase event in Dublin now allows for remote participation. Please register by 17 June 6 p.m. UTC. We will provide dial in details to registered
participants. The number of remote participants is limited and we choose on a first-come, first-served basis – get your seat soon!

On 18 June the MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group holds a showcase event in Dublin about the upcoming Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 specification. Group participants demonstrate implementations for authoring ITS 2.0 data categories, for using them in localization workflows, and for improving machine translation or other language technology processes with ITS 2.0. Participation is free, but registration is required.

The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published a second Last Call working draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0.

The draft implements all changes since the previous publication of 11 April 2013. There are no remaining open issues. The Working Group is planning to finalize ITS 2.0 now: this is your last time to provide feedback! The Last Call period ends 11 June.

ITS 2.0 provides metadata to foster the adoption of the multilingual Web.