INTERNATIONALISATION

DEFINITION of 'Internationalization'

Internationalization (or "Internationalisation", sometimes shortened to "I18N , meaning "I - eighteen letters -N") is a process of planning and implementing products and services so that they can easily be adapted to specific local languages and cultures, a process called localization . Internationalization can also refer to the design of an educational curriculum that will enable students to thrive in foreign countries and in their interactions with other cultures.

Definitions of internationalization may vary. This is a high-level working definition for use with W3C Internationalization Activity material. Some people use other terms, such as globalization to refer to the same concept. Internationalization is the design and development of a product, application or document content that enables easy localization for target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language. Internationalization is often written i18n, where 18 is the number of letters between i and n in the English word.

The designing of your products in such a way that it will meet the needs of users in many countries or can be easily adapted to do so. Internationalization might mean designing a website so that when it is translated from English to Chinese the layout still works - many words in Chinese have more characters and therefore take up more space on the page in Chinese than in English.

The internationalization process sometimes is called translation or localization enablement. Enablement can include:

Allowing space in user interfaces (for example, hardware labels, help pages, and online menus) for translation into languages that require more characters;
Creating print or Web site graphic images so that their text labels can be translated inexpensively
Using written examples that have global meaning;
Developing with products (such as Web editors or authoring tools) that can support international character sets ( Unicode );
For software, ensuring data space so that messages can be translated from languages with single-byte character codes (such as English) into languages requiring multiple-byte character codes (such as Chinese HanZi)

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Access to the Web for all has been a fundamental concern and goal of the World Wide Web Consortium since the beginning. Unfortunately, it is easy to overlook the needs of people from cultures different to your own, or who use different languages or writing systems. If you do, you will build specifications and content that present barriers to the use of your technology or content for many people around the world.

The term internationalization applies to making computer software and hardware compatible with diverse languages. Since not all languages use the same alphabet, one goal is to get astandard English-based keyboard to apply to different alphabets. Anther concern is addressing different symbols that may be present in languages other than English, such as accented letters. Additionally, internationalization addresses the way a language scripts, which may differ significantly from English.

What is Internationalization? If you internationalize, you design or develop your content, application, specification, and so on, in a way that ensures it will work well for, or can be easily adapted for, users from any culture, region, or language. The word 'Internationalization' is often abbreviated to 'i18n'. This is widely used abbreviation, derived from the fact that there are 18 letters between the 'i' and the 'n'.

When internationalization is applied to languages that use different alphabets, keys are coded to replace standard English alphabets. Alphabets vary in length, and certain keys may need to be omitted to exactly replicate the alphabets of other languages. Keyboards may also be localized to a specific culture to address significant differences in alphabets. Localization describes the attempts on the part of the software or hardware manufacturer to adapt items like keyboards to a specific market. For example, an Arabic keyboard or a Russian keyboard would need to be localized to sell well in an Arab or Russian market.

There are other factors to consider, however, when using characters. For example, Unicode based encodings allow the exact same text to be stored using slightly different combinations of characters. For efficiency and accuracy in comparing, sorting and parsing text, the different sequences need to be recognized as 'canonically equivalent'. You need to consider how to manage this when developing applications or specifications that perform or rely on such tasks.
Picture of vertical Chinese text.

In some cases, internationalization does not need to localize products, as alphabets are similar enough to use the QWERTYUIOP form of the keyboard. Often, programs like Microsoft Word have built in short cuts to symbols that differ from English. Letters with accents can generally be added by using the Insert menu to insert accented letters. This is a bit more time-consuming than simply typing a word with an accent, but cutting and pasting or building shortcuts to accents can be easily accomplished and generally does not require additional software.
Sometimes different writing systems require special support. For example, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Mongolian can be written vertically, so the W3C is ensuring CSS, SVG and XSL-FO will allow for vertical text support. Text alignment and justification methods are also different for such scripts, and different again for scripts like Thai and Tibetan. Other local typographic conventions often exist for such things as emphasis, annotations, list numbering, and the like. These typographic approaches need to be supported in style sheets.

Internationalization also includes translating units of measure. For example, wiseGEEK, to accommodate American, British and other English speaking audiences, uses two forms of measurement. We use both the US customary unit of measurement - ounces, inches, or pounds - and the metric measurement - grams, centimeters, or kilograms. This form of internationalization improves communication regarding information about size or weight. In some cases, as in most medical and scientific language, we rely more on the metric system because science has universally adopted this form.

Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu and similar languages mix right-to-left and left-to-right text on the same line, and it is important to be able to control the direction of the surrounding context for that to work properly. This means that schema and format developers need to provide ways for authors to control direction in their content. Schemas, markup languages and formats should also support a number of other constructs needed for efficient handling of content during translation and localisation.

Internationalization of measurements is made significantly easier by many free softwareprograms that convert measurements quickly. Similar programs exist to address differences such as currency values. Internationalization in discussing currency is vital, and also a bit difficult. Currency values change quickly, so programs that convert currency must be aware of world markets. Current information is best obtained from sources on the Internet, and currency calculators make converting dollar to euro or yen far simpler.

If you are dealing with HTML forms or designing ontologies relating to people's names and addresses, you will need to consider how to enable the many different approaches to formatting data that are possible around the world. You may also need to support alternative calendars, time zones and daylight savings, names and addresses in both native plus transliterated forms, etc.

Internationalization must also address the way a language scripts. Is it read horizontally or vertically? Does one read from left to right or from right to left? Programs that address alphabetic changes may also address scripting differences, particularly when hardware or software is localized.
Content developers and content management systems must also be prepared to deal with linguistic and cultural issues. For example, a sentence that is constructed by combining several phrases together in one language may be impossible to translate sensibly in a language with a different sentence structure. For example, in the Japanese translation of "Page 1 of 34" all elements in the phrase would be in reverse order. Your application must not restrict the order in which these elements can be combined. Specifications for technologies such as widgets and voice browsers should also avoid locking developers into an English-biased syntax for such things as composing messages or firing events associated with text.

One easy method of internationalization is to use translation software, often available at no cost on the Internet. One can type in a phrase in English and translate to virtually any language. Caution should be used with this method if one is not fluent in the language to which he or she is translating. Errors are common, particularly when using idiomatic expressions, and can often result in poor communication.
Cultural problems also need to be considered. Symbolism can be culture-specific. The check mark means correct or OK in many countries. In some countries, however, such as Japan, it can be used to mean that something is incorrect. Japanese localizers may need to convert check marks to circles (their symbol for 'correct') as part of the localization process.

These are just a few examples of many. The key message is that design (whether it be of a markup language, a protocol, a content management system, a widget or application, etc.) needs to be flexible enough to accommodate local needs.

Internationalization has globalization as its goal. The Internet has given all its users the ability to speak or write to people from vastly different cultures and language backgrounds. With most internationalization software free or inexpensive, the goal of globalization may ultimately promote a true “global community,” one that supersedes the concept of state or country and focuses on the unity of the world’s population.
What is the Internationalization Activity?
The Internationalization Activity works with W3C Working Groups, related standards bodies, and with designers, developers and content authors generally, to raise awareness of and thereby avoid issues related to the international use of the Web. It also promotes solutions for the needs of specific cultures, languages and writing systems.

BREAKING DOWN 'Internationalization'
Products that are internationalized often must be localized to fit the needs of that country's users. For example, an internationalized software program would need to be localized to display the date as November 14 for use in the United States and as 14 November for use in England.

Internationalization typically entails:

Designing and developing in a way that removes barriers to localization or international deployment. This includes such things as enabling the use of Unicode, or ensuring the proper handling of legacy character encodings where appropriate, taking care over the concatenation of strings, avoiding dependance in code of user-interface string values, etc.

Enabling code to support local, regional, language, or culturally related preferences. Typically this involves incorporating predefined localization data and features derived from existing libraries or user preferences. Examples include date and time formats, local calendars, number formats and numeral systems, sorting and presentation of lists, handling of personal names and forms of address, etc.

Providing support for features that may not be used until localization occurs. For example, adding markup in your DTD to support bidirectional text, or for identifying language. Or adding to CSS support for vertical text or other non-Latin typographic features.

Notice that these items do not necessarily include the localization of the content, application, or product into another language; they are design and development practices which allow such a migration to take place easily in the future but which may have significant utility even if no localization ever takes place.

Separating localizable elements from source code or content, such that localized alternatives can be loaded or selected based on the user's international preferences as needed.

The value of internationalization

Internationalization significantly affects the ease of the product's localization. Retrofitting a linguistically- and culturally-centered deliverable for a global market is obviously much more difficult and time-consuming than designing a deliverable with the intent of presenting it globally. (Think back to the Y2K effort and trying to "undo" two-character year fields that were built on the assumption of "19xx"). So ideally, internationalization occurs as a fundamental step in the design and development process, rather than as an afterthought that can often involve awkward and expensive re-engineering.