LANG as an attribute

Tom Neff (tneff@panix.com)
Mon, 31 Jul 95 13:41:12 EDT

LANG will make a great attribute, but I have a couple of questions. If
the forthcoming RFC anticipates them, great.

1. Are there any lookahead issues with documents "springing" a
LANG="urdu.en" on a browser at the last minute? Should the list of
languages used be recommended somehow up front?

2. A browser for Hebrew or Chinese might well attempt, if it knows the
language is appropriate, to display text right-to-left or
top-to-bottom in future. Are there presentation issues or risks
inherent in allowing a character-level switch from, say, Hebrew to
Spanish and back?

3. I don't know where we stand with multilingual documents. Would the
LANG attribute be useful for, say, a UN tour page that tries to
greet each visitor in his/her own language? Or does this need to be
hauled out of the document and onto a larger document-collection
scale?

My thanks in general to the list membership for the high quality of
work displayed here.

-- 
Tom Neff :: tneff@panix.com :: <URL:http://www.panix.com/~tneff/>