Re: language names

[Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@surfchem0.riken.go.jp>]

Hi,

James (Jay) Treacy wrote:
> If we do this, we should add some information on sources for fonts
> and how to get a browser to recognize them. Any pointers? Even
> better would be if you could write up something for us.

No, we don't need.
IMHO, "numeric character reference" will help (for example) a 
Japanese (Korean, Chinese, Russian, or Arab) person, whose 
computer can display Japanese (Korean,...) language, who 
opens English version of 'http://www.debian.org/index.html' 
and (s)he cannot choose his(her) language because 'Japanese'
(Korean,...) is not displayed properly THOUGH HIS(HER) COMPUTER
HAS PROPER FONTS.


I think ASCII is the universal and safe character set.
I suggest to write

  *** -> ###(NIHONGO)
  @@@ -> &&&(RUSSKII)
  Espa$ol -> Espa+ol

and so on, where 

*** is 'Japanese' in Japanese letters in Japanese local codeset,
### is 'Japanese' in Japanese letters in "numeric character reference",
@@@ is 'Russian' in Cyrillic letters in ISO-8859-5,
&&& is 'Russian' in Cyrillic letters in "numeric character reference",
$   is 'n' with tilde in ISO-8859-1 (I don't like to use ISO-8859-1 in e-mail
                                     because it is not universal),
+   is 'n' with tilde in "numeric character reference", and so on.

Optionally, 'Espa+ol' may be 'Espa+ol(Espanol)' or may not.
(I like this, but someone may feel this is too verbose.)

'NIHONGO' and 'RUSSKII' are 'Japanese' and 'Russian' in their language
in ASCII characters.

Though I know Japanese language can be expressed using ASCII characters
like 'NIHONGO', I don't know about Korean, Chinese, Russean, and Arab
(and optionally Spanish, Romanian, and French) which seem to need
ASCII expression.

---
Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@debian.or.jp>