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Languages using right-to-left scripts 14 Apr 2023 #58

Open r12a opened 1 year ago

r12a commented 1 year ago

https://w3c.github.io/i18n-drafts/questions/qa-scripts.en.html https://w3c.github.io/i18n-drafts/questions/qa-scripts.fr.html

Translator: Gwen Clavé, Clavoline Traduction (@clavoline) https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-translation/2023AprJun/0000.html

clavoline commented 11 months ago

Hi @r12a, I have a million comments about this file - sorry about that!

1) In English, the meta description simply asked:

What directions are commonly localized languages written in?

I updated the meta description as follows to better reflect the content of the article:

What languages use right-to-left (RTL) scripts? What should you do if a language can be written in more than one script?

Is that OK?

2) In the following sentence:

Microsoft offers the following definition on their globalization web site:

The link "globalization web site" points to is no longer valid I wasn’t able to find this definition elsewhere.

In French, I wrote:

Au moment de la rédaction de cet article, Microsoft proposait une autre définition sur son site international, dont voici une traduction libre :

Would you like to update the English sentence? Do you agree with the French translation?

3) The following sentence (from Microsoft’s definition) doesn’t seem relevant in French:

This sense of the word "script" has nothing to do with programming scripts such as Perl or Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript).

I translated it as follows:

Dans ce sens, « écriture » se traduit par « script » en anglais ; il n’a pourtant aucun rapport avec les langages de script au sens informatique, comme Perl ou Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript).

Would you like to remove it from the French version?

4) I ran a quick search on Semrush and found out that the most common search term that includes "left", "right", and "languages" is "how many languages are written from right to left" (with 880 monthly searches in the US alone).

The corresponding expression ("combien de langues s’écrivent de droite à gauche") is also the most popular keyword in French (but with only 40 monthly searches in France).

If you care about this at all, it could be interesting to add a section with this heading followed by a short answer.

I can provide Semrush data if you’re interested.

5) In the following sentence:

No distinction is made between the various styles of Arabic, such as Nastaliq, Magribi, Kano, etc, or those that are abjads and those that are alphabetic.

Could we replace the part in bold with "or abjads and other types of alphabets" or something similar?

According to Wikipedia:

The contrast of abjad versus alphabet has been rejected by other scholars because abjad is also used as a term for the Arabic numeral system. Also, it may be taken as suggesting that consonantal alphabets, in contrast to e.g. the Greek alphabet, were not yet true alphabets.[7] Florian Coulmas, a critic of Daniels and of the abjad terminology, argues that this terminology can confuse alphabets with "transcription systems", and that there is no reason to relegate the Hebrew, Aramaic or Phoenician alphabets to second-class status as an "incomplete alphabet".[8] However, Daniels’s terminology has found acceptance in the linguistic community.[9][10][11]

I found Daniels’s classification here, in French.

6) "Azerbaijani" and "Azeri" (in French, "azerbaïdjanais" and "azéri") seem to refer to the same language.

"Azeri" is mentioned in the text as an example of a language that can be written using several scripts. However, in the table, it is listed as "Azerbaijani". Seeing "Azeri" in the text, people might look for it in the table and won’t be able to find it.

If both of those words indeed refer to the same language, why not use "Azeri, also called Azerbaijani" in the text and "Azerbaijani or Azeri" in the table (or some other combination of the two)?

7) Under "Which languages are written right-to-left (RTL)?", we learn that "Azeri can be written in any of the Latin, Cyrillic, or Arabic scripts."

In addition, below the table, under "Which script should I use?" where Azeri is again used as an example, we are advised to use:

However, in the table, if Azeri is indeed Azerbaijani [aze], the Cyrillic script is missing. Can I add it?

8) In the table, the data is ordered alphabetically by script, then by language. Of course, in the French version, this order doesn’t work. Is it OK if I rearrange it?

9) In the table, aligning the last column ("Potential users") right would make the numbers easier to compare.

10) In the French version, I made a few formatting changes (adding new paragraphs, lists, or bold) in the following sections:

Is that OK? And if it is, would you like me to make the same changes to the English version?

11) The last section - "Which script should I use?" - is very interesting and I think it would make sense to put it in a separate article, as it doesn't concern right-to-left scripts only. Unless, of course, a similar page already exists!

r12a commented 11 months ago

1.

I updated the meta description as follows to better reflect the content of the article:

👍

2.

Would you like to update the English sentence? Do you agree with the French translation?

Sounds good, thanks. Link rot--.

3.

Would you like to remove it from the French version?

I think that would be fine. Otherwise, the French version looks good, if you wanted to keep it.

4. Intruiging. Not something i know much about. What would you suggest in terms of changes to the text?

5. The distinction being made here relies on a distinction between the terms 'abjad' vs 'alphabet'. The Arabic script orthography when used for the Arabic language omits short vowel diacritics (same for Syriac, Urdu, etc languages). This is what i'm referring to as 'abjads'. On the other hand, when the arabic script is used for most African languages, Kashmiri, Uighur, etc, it is used as an 'alphabet', ie. all vowel letters are always represented (be they diacritics or not).

To make that clearer perhaps we could link to the glossary definitions, and reword the sentence slightly, like this:

No distinction is made between the various styles of Arabic, such as Nastaliq, Magribi, Kano, etc, nor between the orthographies that are <a class="termref" href="https://w3c.github.io/i18n-glossary/#dfn-abjad">abjads</a> and those that are <a class="termref" href="https://w3c.github.io/i18n-glossary/#dfn-alphabet">alphabets</span>.

6. 👍 for your suggestion. In the table we can use Azerbaijani/Azeri.

7. Yes.

8. Yes.

9. Good idea.

10. For Qu’est-ce qu’une écriture ? i was, if i remember correctly, just following the paragraph format of the original quote. I don't mind if you break it into more than one para, but i think i'd leave the English version as is.

For Quelles langues s’écrivent de droite à gauche ? you do a lot of paraphrasing, but it seems fine to me.

For Quelles langues peuvent s’écrire à l’aide d’écritures de droite à gauche ? i like the restructuring you propose.

For Quelle écriture devrais-je utiliser ? i also like what you did.

11. Mmm. This is perhaps the only part of the article that remains of the original content written by Tex. I'm not sure i want to expend the energy on moving to a separate article at the moment, though i'll keep it in mind (and in fact, while rewriting the article i asked myself the same question).

Once again, many thanks for your excellent suggestions! Maybe one day i might be able to convince you to join the Working Group and contribute your own articles ???

clavoline commented 11 months ago

Thank you for your feedback @r12a!

2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 are done.

4.

Basically, asking the question somewhere on the page would help a little bit, especially in a heading. Since this isn't the focus of the page, let's keep it simple.

For instance, we could turn this:

What languages use RTL scripts?

The following table gives a rough idea of modern spoken languages that can be written using RTL scripts, and where they are spoken. Some of the smaller languages are not mentioned. This data is gathered from information in the SIL Ethnologue.

  • The Script Usage column shows all scripts that can be used for that language: the relative order gives a rough idea of frequency of use, and where the script usage is minor it appears in parentheses.
  • The Potential Users column lists the number of overall speakers of that language (native and second language users). The figures don't take into account users of liturgical languages.

The total number of potential users is of course an overestimate, because it doesn't take into account literacy levels or competing scripts or usage trends. Nonetheless, at 2,305,048,719 it indicates that the actual number of potential users possibly runs past a billion.

The table lists 12 scripts, and 215 languages. Arabic accounts for a large proportion, with 189 languages and just over 2 billion potential users. No distinction is made between the various styles of Arabic, such as Nastaliq, Magribi, Kano, etc., nor between the orthographies that are abjads and those that are alphabets. Nor, as mentioned, does it take into account the number of people using Arabic because of their religion.

(followed by the table)

Into something like this:

What languages use RTL scripts?

The following table gives a rough idea of modern spoken languages that can be written using RTL scripts, and where they are spoken. In addition:

  • The Script Usage column shows all scripts that can be used for that language: the relative order gives a rough idea of frequency of use, and where the script usage is minor it appears in parentheses.
  • The Potential Users column lists the number of overall speakers of that language (native and second language users). The figures don't take into account users of liturgical languages.

This data is gathered from information in the SIL Ethnologue.

How many languages are written from right to left?

The table lists 12 scripts, and 215 languages. Some of the smaller languages are not mentioned.

Arabic accounts for a large proportion, with 189 languages and just over 2 billion potential users. No distinction is made between the various styles of Arabic, such as Nastaliq, Magribi, Kano, etc., nor between the orthographies that are abjads and those that are alphabets. Nor, as mentioned, does it take into account the number of people using Arabic because of their religion.

How many people use right-to-left scripts?

The total number of potential users is of course an overestimate, because it doesn't take into account literacy levels or competing scripts or usage trends. Nonetheless, at 2,305,048,719 it indicates that the actual number of potential users possibly runs past a billion.

(followed by the table)

Let me know what you think.

5.

Thank you for your explanation. I hadn't realized that you were using the terms in this way, but it makes a lot of sense!

While the links to definitions can be helpful, I find your explanation much clearer. It could be a good addition to the article - and save readers the trouble of visiting a different page. Could I add it as an aside?

9.

Can I edit the stylesheet to do this?

10.

Re: "Quelles langues s’écrivent de droite à gauche ?", I did rearrange the text quite a bit. If you think I went too far, please let me know!

11.

As for contributing my own articles, I appreciate the thought! For now, I really enjoy doing these translations - it's a nice way to learn about localization while getting more practice in IT translation. The lack of time pressure is also welcome. I don't think I would have time (or energy) for a bigger commitment.

r12a commented 11 months ago

4. Looks good. But we perhaps need to squeeze back in the sentence "Some of the smaller languages are not mentioned."

It could be a 3rd bullet point, or it could appear after the Ethnologue sentence.

5. Sure, please add an aside.

9. I think it would be best to add a style element in the document head, since this is only going to be used for this page. (We'd normally have a local.css file for such things, but it seems like a bit of overkill to create a new file for just one style selector.)

10. Seems fine to me, thanks.

11. Ok. It was worth a try ;-)

cheers

clavoline commented 11 months ago

Thanks again @r12a!

4, 5, and 9 are done (for now!).

  1. Glad you like it :)

I put "Some of the smaller languages are not mentioned." right after "The table lists 12 scripts, and 215 languages." (under "How many languages are written from right to left?") to make it clear that the table wasn't exhaustive.

Do you want to put it right under "What languages use RTL scripts?"?