About sml and internationalization

[Robin Cover]

On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:

> > An element name is not like a keyword in a programming
> > language.  It is more like a variable name or field name.
> > These have much more visibility to ordinary users than
> > keywords in languages. 
> 
> This is very true. I saw a programming language once that
> used Japanese for keywords... even the Japanese folk found it

I don't know Japanese, but I cannot imagine the world being
otherwise, in Japan or in any country in the world.  
XML element type names and attribute names represent
opportunities for users to encode the "name" of a real-world
thing.  The ability to name a thing (see the reflex in dozens
of myths, including the biblical 'naming' of animals) is
widely recognized as an essential privilege and function
within any act of design/creation.  In XML markup design, I suppose
most people would indeed like to be able to nominate a "name"
for a thing in their own language -- not in someone else's
language.  It's just one of the reasons that the TEI provided
a mechanism (using PEs) to allow the redefinition of
all element and attribute names in local languages.

Robin Cover



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