>One important point to note is that by itself, the 'xml:lang'
>attribute simply indicates the language of the content and attribute
>values -- it does not suggest that sibling elements with different
>xml:lang values either are or are not equivalents in other languages.
>For example, I could have
>
><itinerary>
> <city xml:lang=3D"fr">Montréal</city>
> <city xml:lang=3D"en">London</city>
> <city xml:lang=3D"it">Roma</city>
></itinerary>
>
Tony Graham, tgraham@mulberrytech.com said on 11/9/98 10:09 AM:
>While you may find concepts from the TMX work that are useful to you,
>TMX stands for Translation Memory eXchange, and is concerned with
>importing and exporting portions of translation memory -- phrases that
>have been translated once and saved so they don't need to be
>translated again -- between translation tools. TMX has structures for
>parallel portions of text in multiple languages, but there is no
>concept that these chunks of text can, should, or will string together
>to make a coherent "document", in anybody's sense of the word. The
>only markup in a TMX document, which is in XML, is concerned with
>delimiting and identifying the parallel chunks of text for the
>purposes of the translation tool: other markup from the source
>document may be saved in the TMX document (with significant XML
>characters escaped with entities) but only as a translation aid for
>those tools that can use it.
I have created phrase "substitution" scripts in Frontier and XML and =
ran into the same problem. I wanted to be able to "translate" phrases =
or words for use in multi-lingual Websites. It translates in the =
roughest sense: "Hello World!"=3D=3D"=A1Hola Mundo!"=3D=3D"=A1Bonjour =
Monde!".
I created my own translation DTD (I don't know of simple ones that =
may exist) -- and I think it shows, as David pointed out, that XML =
only provides a framework and the processing program has to provide =
an additional amount of structure not found in the DTD.
Under my dirty little DTD (built by necessity), the "Hello World!" =
example would be:
<PHRASE ID=3D"Hello World!" xml:lang=3D"en">
<TRANSLATION xml:lang=3D"fr">
=A1Bonjour Monde!
</TRANSLATION>
<TRANSLATION xml:lang=3D"es">
=A1Hola Mundo!
</TRANSLATION>
<TRANSLATION xml:lang=3D"de">
Hallo Welt!
</TRANSLATION>
</PHRASE>
This is a private DTD, so in my little world I know that the ID =
attribute of the PHRASE element equals the text nodes of the =
TRANSLATION elements. It would be asking too much of XML to enforce =
this structure.
TMX does provide this sort of function and structure, doesn't it?
Here is how I would translate the previous example in TMX:
<?xml version=3D"1.0?">
<!DOCTYPE tmx SYSTEM "http://www.lisa.org/tmx/tmx11.dtd">
<tmx version=3D"1.1">
<header
creationtool=3D"UserLand Frontier"
creationtoolversion=3D"5.1.4"
datatype=3D"PlainText"
segtype=3D"phrase"
adminlang=3D"en-us"
srclang=3D"EN"
o-tmf=3D"Frontier"
o-encoding=3D"MACINTOSH">
</header>
<body>
<tu>
<tuv lang=3D"EN" creationid=3D"BUZU">
<seg>Hello world!</seg>
</tuv>
<tuv lang=3D"FR" creationid=3D"BUZU">
<seg>=A1Bonjour Monde!</seg>
</tuv>
<tuv lang=3D"ES" creationid=3D"BUZU">
<seg>=A1Hola Mundo!</seg>
</tuv>
<tuv lang=3D"DE" creationid=3D"BUZU">
<seg>Hallo Welt!</seg>
</tuv>
</tu>
</body>
</tmx>
Here's my question:
As I understand it, TMX is a format for translation "dictionaries" -- =
or lists of equivalent words, phrases, sentences or paragraphs in =
different languages. TMX also allows the preservation of formating =
within phrases, such as boldface, italic, etc.
I always judge tools by what *I* need from them and that is what I =
need from TMX. Is it meant to do more than what I have asked it to =
do? Is this "dictionary" concept something TMX is *meant* for?
I am under the impression that TMX can also have embedded "macros" =
within phrases. By "macro", I mean processing commands that may be =
understood only by a specific scripting language. Am I right?
Deke
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Deke Smith
Tallent Communications Group, Brentwood TN
deke@tallent.com, 615-661-9878
-----------------------------------------------------------------
" The best way to predict the future is to invent it. "
- Alan Kay