National Language Architecture

©SHARE Europe (SEAS) White Paper, originally published fall 1990.

A statement from august 2002 demonstrates the relevance of this work: ^X

Abstract

Activities of most companies become multi-national, especially with the opening of the European market. Hence the users of Information Systems will no longer use only one language or live within a distinct cultural environment. Competitiveness calls for IS-applications which can be used by much more people than current applications. The SEAS White Paper on National Character, Language and Keyboard Problems (issued in 1985) described the problems with IBM's software and hardware. SAA lacked any provisions to solve the addressed problems when it was announced. So SHARE Europe again had to tackle these issues on behalf of its membership. The architecture describes functions required for codes and code points, character sets, sorting and searching, date and time representation, numeric grouping symbols and message handling that language and cultural differences are correctly handled. Implementing those functions will make it possible to develop an application that executes correctly regardless of language and cultural difference. Klaus Daube, OBRZ, Zürich, Switzerland For a historical review of the work done on this subject see National Language Architecture - 12 striving years National Language Architecture ou douze ans d'efforts

Notes from the editor (1998)

At the time of writing this White Paper 'gender neutral writing' was not an issue and the term 'political correctness' was not known at all. In this paper the masculine form was used although feminine people always were implied in the meaning (and women took part in the discussions very often). Fortunately the English language does not bear a gender in the article 'the'...

The logo displayed above was drafted on a napkin by Alain LaBonté at one of the meetings... The copyright on this design is with him. All (former) members of the NLA working group are entitled to use it to promote NLA and NLS work.

Table of Contents

Management Summary	Acknowledgement	Glossary
Introduction	Background	Annotated Bibliography

Language

• Identification of Language
• Predefined Text Banks
• Spelling
• Hyphenation
• Keywords
• Object Names

Functions needed for Support of National Language

• Comparison of Strings
• Search
• Sorting
• Merge
• Set and Query NLAAttributes
• Key Translation
• Reverse Key Translation

Culture Sensitive Functions

• Numeric Punctuation
• Currency Handling
• Date and Time
• Additional Categories

Messages and Documentation

• Messages
• Message Services
• Substituting Variables in Messages
• Documentation and Machine Readable Information
• Documentation for Applications
• Numenclature
• NLADocumentation

Encoding of Character Data

• Character Set
• Control Characters
• Coding Schemes
• Function for Handling Code Pages

Presentation Services

• Output on Screen and Printer
• Data Integrity
• Keyboards

Operating System Requirements

• Setting the Environment
• System Services
• Compiler and Runtime System
• Text Representation
• Portability
• Utilities
• Low Level Functions

Implementation Considerations

• Tagging Data
• Data Type Key
• Sorting Text
• Properties of an Environment
• Hierarchy of Defaults
• Adaptability
• Modular Keyboard
• Typewriter Area of Keyboard

Note: Robert Hopkins, founder of Weblations in www.newarchitect.com, june 2002 issue:
The biggest obstacle to internationalization is the sheer distance, in every sense of the word, between the content owner and the content user. The people who benefit from I18N mostly are not Americans, while those who pay for it mostly are. Most of the biggest knowledge bases are available in English only.
Why? I guess it's because the Americans with the big budgets don't understand in their bones how absolutely imperative it is to translate that material to get a return on it outside of the U.S.A.
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