Subject: Re: (seq 47) (i18n 91) SGML & Internationalization

From: Dominic Dunlop <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 22:19:44 BST

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