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Making Meaning in a Multilingual World
The document discusses the importance of supporting multilingualism in software development, particularly emphasizing the necessity of understanding Unicode and character sets. It highlights best practices for implementing multilingual systems, including examples like Drupal and its translation management tools, while cautioning against common pitfalls such as improper font usage and text in images. The document aims to provide practical guidance for developers to create inclusive and accessible digital experiences.
Making Meaning in a Multilingual World
- 1. Making meaning ina multilingual world Tristan Roddis, Cogapp MCN Minneapolis, November 2015 @tristan_roddis tristanr@cogapp.com
- 2. Why bother? Worldwide USA Lotsmore information in 2013 census data!
- 3. • Unicode! OK, I’mconvinced. How? 'THUMBS UP SIGN' (U+1F44D) 'OK HAND SIGN' (U+1F44C)
- 4. Backend systems • TMSnow fully multilingual • Multi Mimsy XG is too
- 5. Make sure you understandit • e.g. The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!) by Joel Spolsky
- 6. Make sure processing systemshandle it too • e.g. Python 2 versus Python 3 • Create a Unicode “sandwich”
- 7. What about aCMS? • Drupal • Excellent multilingual support • Editing interface also translated • Even better in Drupal 8
- 9. Things to consider •Fallback language • Translation of categories and taxonomies • URL translation
- 10. Translation workflow • Drupal:Translation Management Tool • Third-party services, e.g. Lingotek • Transiflex - free for Open Source
- 11. Right-to-left text • <htmldir=“rtl”> • ‏
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- 13. CSS • Use apre-processor! • e.g. SASS, LESS
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- 16. Arabic numbers • WesternArabic versus Eastern Arabic numerals • N.b. read left-to-right!
- 17. Images • Avoid textin images • Reverse image ordering
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- 20. Beware web fonts •Unsupported characters, especially for mixed language
- 23. Beware web fonts •Even transliteration can cause problems • E.g. → • See this article on diacritics
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- 27. So what doyou get?
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Editor's Notes
- #3 Worldwide: L1 speakers: 340 million L2 speakers: 510 million Total: 850 million Total population: 7.3bn =&gt; 12% total &lt; 5% first language USA: English: 80% Spanish: 12.4% and non-English speakers growing: 1 in 11 in 1980, 1 in 5 in 2013 Increase reach, nationally and internationally
- #5 TMS went Unicode in TMS2012
- #6 Article from 2003 buts still v.relevant
- #17 Also: Hijri Camara
- #20 Can composite images on kiosks to save installing fonts Also: Welsh singing aliens for the BBC
- #22 Mixed language in title Also n.b. reversed arrows due to reading direction Viewed in Chrome with Gotham Rounded web font
- #23 Same page, viewed in IE9
- #24 Spoiler: composed characters safer than decomposed
- #25 Brand guidelines specify a very stylized font
- #26 Test with native speakers: large blocks of text hard to read
- #27 So switch to standard Arial for web use