TEI: Internationalization and Localization

The Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines have been widely adopted by projects and institutions in many countries in Europe, North America, and Asia, and are used for encoding texts in dozens of languages. The TEI community is broadly international and multilingual, and its geographical reach increases every year. However, the complex encoding of texts at which the TEI excels requires a close understanding of the available elements (numbering over 500), and non-English speakers are at a considerable disadvantage in learning and using the Guidelines. The TEI needs to be made more accessible to the international community it seeks to serve.

With generous financial assistance from the ALLC, the TEI is working to produce
  1. a working architecture for internationalization of the TEI source
  2. internationalized stylesheets for delivery of the reference section of TEI guidelines
  3. translations of the TEI reference documentation into six languages which the TEI considers to be the highest priority
  4. a framework for coordinating further translation efforts to be undertaken on a volunteer basis, or to be supported by further funding if available

For each language, the <desc> , <gloss> and <remarks> documentation elements for every class, element, macro, attribute and attribute value are being translated. In some cases localized and/or translated examples are being prepared. Localization strings for XSL stylesheets are largely complete.

Results are available as follows:

Chinese stable release test release Side by side with English
French stable release test release Side by side with English
German stable release test release Side by side with English
Italian stable release test release Side by side with English
Japanese stable release test release Side by side with English
Spanish stable release test release Side by side with English
The current translation projects are as follows:
Language Project leader Location Status
Chinese Marcus Bingenheimer Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan Some modules available, others being checked. Examples being worked on.
French Jean-Luc Benoit, ATILF University of Nancy <desc> and <gloss> complete, <remarks> still to do. Examples being worked on.
German Werner Wegstein Wuerzburg University <desc> and <gloss> done for two modules; rest being worked on.
Italian <desc> and <gloss> complete, <remarks> still to do
Japanese Ohya Kazushi Tsurumi University, Yokohama More or less complete
Portguese Leonor Barroca The Open University under consideration for semi-automatic translation
Spanish Carmen Arronis Llopis University of Alicante Mostly complete, some <desc> and <gloss> remaining
Russian Tatjana Timcenko under consideration for semi-automatic translation