From domo@tsa.co.uk Thu Apr 4 23:48:27 1991 Received: from [129.12.1.5] by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA21978; Thu, 4 Apr 91 23:48:27 +0200 Received: from bugs.specialix.co.uk by kestrel.Ukc.AC.UK with SMTP id af19138; 4 Apr 91 22:43 BST Received: from tsa.co.uk by specialix.co.uk id aa09534; Thu, 4 Apr 91 21:37:41 GMT From: Dominic Dunlop Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 22:19:44 BST Message-Id: <12706.9104042119@tsa.co.uk> In-Reply-To: Erik Naggum "(seq 47) (i18n 91) SGML & Internationalization" (Apr 4, 16:02) X-Fax: +44 491 651751 X-Phone: +44 491 652590 X-Address: 9 The Forty, Cholsey, OXON OX10 9LH, U.K. X-Organization: The Standard Answer Ltd. X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.2 7/11/90) To: erik@naggum.uu.no, I18N@dkuug.dk Subject: Re: (seq 47) (i18n 91) SGML & Internationalization X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 Eric, Thanks for your help. I understand that the motivation in defining SGML was to remove any bias towards any particular natural language -- that is, given its genesis, English. In consciously thinking about this issue, the writers of the standard have done useful work in discovering areas in which it was necessary to decouple the standard from cultural bias, with the result that the standard is, in the POSIX sense of the term, internationalized: it is culturally neutral. It is the localization step applied to an internationalized environment or application that superimposes a bias of the user's choice. I agree that SGML says little about the localization process, and defines only the highest level of the (to use another POSIX word) locale definition. But the fact that SGML has trodden the path to achieving a culturally neutral standard ahead of POSIX makes it interesting reading. Well, if you like that sort of thing. I'll join you in comp.text.sgml in a while. Don't wait up for me. -- Dominic Dunlop