Chapter 6. Internationalization

If the Web is to reach a truly worldwide audience, it needs to be able to support the display of all the languages of the world, with all their unique alphabets and symbols, directionality, and specialized punctuation. The W3C's efforts for internationalization (often referred to as "i18n"an i, then 18 letters, then an n) ensure that the formats and protocols defined by the W3C are usable worldwide in all languages and writing systems.

You often hear the terms internationalization (or globalization ) and localization used together. The W3C defines localization as the process of adapting a technology or content to meet the language, cultural, and other requirements of a particular culture, region, or language. Internationalization refers to the design and development of web content and technologies that enables easy localization for target audiences. Localization entails more than simple language translation. It also takes into account details including, but not limited to:

• Date and time formats

• Currency

• Keyboard usage

• Cultural interpretations of symbols, icons, and colors

• Content that may be subject to misinterpretation or viewed as insensitive

• Varying legal requirements

Creating multilingual web sites and localized versions of site content is well beyond the scope of this Nutshell book. This chapter addresses two primary issues related to internationalization. First is the handling of alternative character sets that take into account all the writing systems of the world, including character encoding and character references. Second is the features built into HTML 4.01 and CSS 2.1 for specifying languages and their unique presentation requirements.