Language questions

[Marco-ICTU-NL]

It is not clear to me how languages are to be used in the model. Is there one public service description per language (i.e. both a birth certificate and a (Dutch) 'geboorteuittreksel')? Or is there just one PS description, with multiple web pages (one for each language)? If it is the latter: There are several descriptions throughout the model, that allow only one language - for Instance, in the Evidence class. Do I use English or Dutch here? During the webinar we briefly discussed the possibility of adding descriptions in multiple languages throughout the model. Some clarification on the intended use, plus a multilingual example, would be most welcome.

[giorgialodi]

I also raised some questions about multilingual text properties (see issue #5). It seems to me that we need to distinguish two layers:

1. text properties that describe the service, action, and any other element in the model. They should be multilingual, therefore with cardinality 0..n so that to allow one to specify more than 1 instance of the text property, one per each language
2. the language related to the content of the public service. A public service can be provided in English, Italian, Dutch. In addition I may want to say that with the web site channel the public service is provided in English and Dutch, and with the phone channel in Italian and Dutch only.

I agree with the last comment to clarify better this aspect of multilingualism

[barthelemyf]

Proposed resolution

We need to differentiate between the language of the content provided by the public administrations from the available languages mentioned for a channel.

• To enable public administrations to provide any pieces of information in multiple languages, we agree with the proposition: each text property from the model could be duplicated using the most appropriate language. For example: the property description would follow the URI dct:description with range rdfs:Literal. The description could be repeated as many times as necessary. The same approach could be applied to name (dct:title) or preferred label (skos:preflabel).
• To give the opportunity to indicate that a certain service or its existing channels are available in certain languages, we propose to keep the current property language (dct:language) with range LinguisticSystem.

Rationale

Starting back from the regulation, the main requirements seems for us to be paragraphs 19 and 35 in the preamble:

• (19) about procedures: “When users are completing online procedures across borders, they should be able to receive all the relevant explanations in an official language of the Union that is broadly understood by the largest possible number of cross-border users. This does not mean that Member States are required to translate their administrative forms related to the procedure, or the output of that procedure, into that language. Member States are however encouraged to use technical solutions which would allow users to complete the procedures in as many cases as possible, in that language, while respecting the Member States’ rules on the use of languages.”
• (35) about information: “The accessibility of information for cross-border users can be substantially improved where that information is made available in an official language of the Union broadly understood by the largest possible number of cross-border users. This language should in most cases be the foreign language most widely studied by users across the Union, but in some specific cases, more particularly in the case of information to be provided at local level by small municipalities close to the border of a Member State, the most suitable language may be the one used as a first language by the cross-border users in the neighbouring Member State. The translation from the official language or languages of the Member State in question into this other official language of the Union should accurately reflect the content of the information provided in the original language or languages. Translation may be limited to the information that users need in order to understand the basic rules and requirements that apply to their situation. While Member States should be encouraged to translate as much information as possible into an official language of the Union that is broadly understood by the largest possible number of cross-border users, the volume of information to be translated under this Regulation will depend on the financial resources available for this purpose, in particular those from the Union budget.”

Those two paragraphs initiate several articles that we can find later in the regulation: art. 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 30.