links - i18n

"Internationalisation":
The techniques to use and display different languages and scripts in computer formats.

The abbreviation for "internationalisation" is "i18n". Why? 18 letters between the "i" and the "n".

(The American spelling is "internationalization".)

"Localisation":
The actual translation into various languages.

is the process by which all of the labels and messages, used by a piece of software, are translated into various different languages. Then that software is available to more people, in their native language.

The abbreviation for "localisation" is "l10n". Why? 18 letters between the "i" and the "n".

(The American spelling is "localization".)

concepts

When making a web page in a (non-roman) script, you need to think about:

character set (Unicode or latin or other)
character encoding
language keyboard
(Microsoft and other OS's have keyboards built in for many scripts — like russian and chinese. Unfortunately there is not yet a built-in keyboard for Tibetan and Mongolian, so we have to get it separately.)

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Asian Languages

CJKV Information Processing http://www.oreilly.com/ A book by Ken Lunde, (OReilly)
The definitive guide for tackling the difficult issues faced when dealing with complex Asian languages - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese - in the context of computing or internet services.

Topics covered include:

Writing systems, Character set standards, Encoding methods,

Input methods, Output methods, Font formats, Typography,

Programming and code conversion techniques, Internet and Web implications.

Dictionaries and dictionary software

Also includes valuable appendices:

code conversion tables, character set tables, character set indexes, mapping tables, Perl code examples, glossary, detailed bibliography.
Ken Lunde :

Character sets and encoding

Character Code Issues - Tutorial http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/chars.html Jukka Korpela has assembled a huge amount of information related to character sets. The tutorial is well-written and very interesting reading. Jukka Korpela :
Do you know your character encodings? http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/03/15/do-you-know-your-character-encodings/ Good (relatively) simple introduction. "Have you ever noticed certain characters on your site not displaying the way they should? Perhaps the curly quotation marks look like little boxes, or the long dashes have been replaced with question marks. Problems like these usually arise from an incomplete understanding of character encodings ... " Kevin Yank : 1 March 2006

Language codes

ISO 639 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639 ISO 639 is the set of international standards that lists short codes for language names. "The language codes defined in the several sections of ISO 639 are used for bibliographic purposes and, in computing and internet environments, as a key element of locale data. The codes also find use in various applications, for example, in Wikipedia URLs for its different language editions." Wikipedia : 2010
ISO 639-1 codes - List http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes The standard codes for languages. There are other codes listed, but 639-1 is the one we use. Wikipedia : 2010

Romanization

Pinyin at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin Complete discussion of Hanyu Pinyin. (mar 2006) Wikipedia : 2012
Romanization at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization Very complete discussion of romanization worldwide, with many links. (mar 2006) Wikipedia : 2012

Web Development

Developing Non-English Web Sites http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/ Information, software, newsfeeds Penn State University : 2006
Internationalization Tips For Your Website http://www.worldlingo.com/en/solutions/internationalization_tips.html Good tips to help prepare your website for localization, from a company that specializes in translation and localication of websites. WorldLingo : 2007
Intro to internationalization, in the book Building Scalable Websites http://no site "Chapter four is the most readable introduction to internationalization, localization, and Unicode that I've seen up to this point." (Brian Donovan on slashdot) Cal Henderson : 2006
Multi-regional and multilingual sites http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192 Guidelines and best practices to follow when building multilingual and/or multi-regional sites. Google : 2012
Tips for for Developing Non-English Web Sites http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/web/tips/ HTML meta tags; special characters; web editors; layout and fonts; other workarounds Penn State University : 2006

general resources

computer translation http://www.halfbakery.com/category/Computer_3a_20Translation Interesting thoughts, serious and not-so. HalfBakery : 2006
Globalization Step-by-Step http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688110.aspx A guide to help application developers and others understand what it takes to globalize an application. Each article in this guide has two main sections: Overview, and Code Microsoft : 2012
OASIS - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards http://www.oasis-open.org/ An international consortium that creates interoperable industry specifications based on public standards. OASIS : 2012
SIL translation http://www.sil.org/ By facilitating language-based development, SIL International serves the peoples of the world through research, translation, and literacy SIL : 2012